


By Any Other Name

by caporushes, Covenmouse



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: Alternate Universe, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Humor, Urban Fantasy, areas of very mild dubious consent, horror romance, mildly sexual content, supernatural horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:48:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 32,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27657077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caporushes/pseuds/caporushes, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Covenmouse/pseuds/Covenmouse
Summary: James isn’t sure what’s less believable: that his estranged grandfather left him the family’s ancient bed and breakfast, that his grandfather died without anyone being warned he was sick, or that James’ life on the east coast collapsed at just the right time to make a cross-country move seem like a fantastic idea. Things only get weirder when he arrives at the old family homestead to find that the B&B still has one long-term tenant who won’t be put out. So far as she’s concerned, this house is her home, and he’s only its custodian.
Relationships: Hino Rei/Jadeite
Comments: 30
Kudos: 10
Collections: Senshi & Shitennou Mini Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys~ Thank you for reading my entry for this year's Sailor Moon Big Bang. I had a ton of fun working with Charlie on getting this beast into shape, and thanks to my collaborator Caporushes for her glorious art! Please keep the tags in mind for the first chapter or two, though I promise this is as dark as this fic gets, m'kay? I'll be releasing three chapters a day until the 24th, when I'll post the final two. <3 
> 
> Also, I've taken the liberty of putting together a spotify playlist for this fic.

My grandfather ran a bed and breakfast on a nowhere strip of beach on the border between Washington and Oregon. The overgrown cabin stands a rickety three stories high and seems held aloft more by the pressure of tree boughs scraping against the walls than its own strength. The porch sags, all the windows are warped, and the kitchen has a strange, cloyingly floral reek to it. Looking at it now, I can’t believe he’s had a paying customer in the past decade, but somehow the property has remained in his keeping; taxes paid, inspections passed. 

When the lawyer handling Grandpa’s estate presented me the deed and keys with the explanation that the estate taxes had been “taken care of” I didn’t know what to make of it. Never was one to look a gift sideways, though. Especially not one that I needed rather desperately.

“Thanks, Grandpa,” I murmur to myself, as though the old man can hear me. Hell, maybe he can. Standing in the gravel drive, staring up at the house with its chipped and peeling paint, and soulless, bare windows I can’t quite shake the notion that if any house in the world deserves to be haunted, it’s this one. Even the paint colour, once a cheerful cherry red, has gone sallow and morose with age; more the colour of stale wine. Or blood. 

Still, a potentially haunted house is preferable to another night sleeping in the charger. 

A 1982 model, my charger might have been worth a penny if it had been kept with anything resembling proper care or respect. As it is, the steel-coloured paint is nearly as chipped as the houses’, the engine doesn’t so much purr as rumble like a pissed off giant ready to grind someone’s bones to make their bread, and the interior is stained with everything from… well. It’s stained. The charger belonged to one of my older cousins before we lost contact, and while I won’t pretend to not have spilled some coffee here or ketchup there, most of the stains predate my ownership. In fact, some of those older stains look off in a way I’ve never cared to question. As I said, I’m not the kind of guy to look a gift sideways, and while the charger was bought and paid for, the price tag had been a joke even back in the early aughts. 

In addition to being a P.O.S., the charger really isn’t built for sleeping in. I’m tired of having a cricked neck and an imprint of the seat buckle permanently etched into my hip. I’ll take a bare floor to sleep on so long as it comes with a decent roof. 

Taking a last drag of my cigarette, I eye the roof-line through eyes narrowed against the sunset light gleaming off the window panes. Maybe ‘decent’ is a bit of an exaggeration here, but, eh. I’ll take it. It’s mine, after all. At least until I fail to pay the property taxes. Hell, maybe not even then. It’s hard to imagine anyone else—even the government—wanting a slice of this asbestos pie. 

I flick the cigarette to the ground, grinding it under one heel though I doubt the leaves covering the driveway are anywhere near dry enough to kindle. It hasn’t rained in a good couple hours, but if the past day and half in this state have taught me anything, it’s that this place will always be some amount of damp.

Once I’m satisfied that Smokey the Bear won’t be lumbering out of the forest to beat my negligent ass down, I throw the only duffel bag I have left to my name over one shoulder and schlep it up the steps to the front door. 

###  #

The lawyer had taken me around the place earlier this afternoon, but honestly, I was barely paying attention. I’d been preoccupied with how quickly I could sell it, pay off the estate debts, and if maybe—by some angel’s grace—I’d have enough left over to get myself to L.A. or San Francisco. Or Portland? Somewhere there could be jobs and opportunity. It never occurred to me while I was driving this way that the place might be  _ mine _ , even if only for a while, so I hadn’t cared enough to pay attention.

I pause just inside the front door, letting it shut gently behind me as I wait for my eyes to adjust. With the sunset still beaming through the windows there’s decent enough light to get a dim view of everything, but still… 

A few flips of a nearby light switch confirm that either I have no idea where the foyer light switch is and am presently confusing the ghosts in the basement, or someone shut the electricity off and I’ll need to get it turned back on if I want to see at night. Willing to bet on the latter. 

“This is gonna be fun,” I say to the house, take a floral-scented breath, and head for the stairs at the end of the hall. 

All of Grandpa’s things are exactly where he’d left them. When the lawyer first called she’d asked if I wanted to hire someone local to pack everything up. I’d laughed and said “Sure, but who’s paying?” She took the hint and never mentioned anyone or anything I could “hire” again. 

No one had bothered to do so much as throw sheets over the furniture. Everything was surprisingly clean, though. Somehow, the five weeks between Grandpa’s death and my arrival hadn’t been enough to build up much dust. Or someone  _ had _ been by to clean. Maybe the lawyer? If so, I probably should have thanked her a little more sincerely. 

I run my fingers along a sideboard set along the hall, just before the open archway into the living room. They come back impeccably clean, despite the dust motes twinkling like christmas lights in the sunset rays spilling across the living room’s tacky 1970s furniture. 

Actually, if I’m being honest, the furniture kind of works for me. 

I hadn’t seen the place outside of photos since—hm. Since ever. The last time I’d been here in person I’d been just shy of a year old. Don’t think that counts, really, since I can’t remember any of it. Grandpa was always the one to visit us, claiming the B&B was “booked full” any time my mother made noise about visiting for the summer. My Dad, who seemed eternally worried about having to pay for a ‘home’ for the old man one day, was quick to turn the subject and congratulate Grandpa for running such a fine business all on his own. 

It was a bit condescending, all said, but Grandpa never seemed to mind. It kept us away.

Anyways, the only reference I’d had for the place was a photo mom kept of her parents, taken back when Grandma was still alive (I hope,) standing outside the place and smiling. Based on the look of them I’d expected the interior to be Grandparent Chique; floral patterns and wood paneling and doilies. 

I hadn’t anticipated the chrome framework furniture; the solid, bright autumnal colours, or tables in an assortment of asymmetric shapes. None of the walls match; with half of them in stripe-painted paneling and the others solid-coloured with decorative abstract flares. None of the interior walls show the same wear-and-tear as the exterior, and I’m pleased to note the television perched on the entertainment stand looks to be from this decade. The other electronics aren’t: two floor lamps, a table lamp, and a boxy contraption that vaguely resembles the massive vinyl-player cabinets of old. Still, if I had electricity this setup would be amazing. 

Shaking my head in wonder, I jog up the steps to the second floor where I vaguely recall there being a collection of bedrooms. Three, as a matter of fact, with a seperate bathroom at the end of the hall, just beside the door to the third story staircase. The master suite is up there, where the “attic” once had been. Despite everything, I don’t feel right going to sleep up there. That was Grandpa’s room and it’s going to stay that way. For now, at least.

Instead, I take the bedroom at the end of the hall, nearest to the bathroom door and farthest from the main stairwell. If I have to take a piss in the middle of the night, I’d prefer to minimize my chances of taking a tumble down the steps, thank you very much. 

The room is simple, and matches the aesthetic of the downstairs; wood furniture with solid colour accents, and the occasional geometric pattern to break it all up. God, Marnie would love all this. 

Swallowing a surge of resentment, I toss my duffel into a corner, close the door, and fall backward onto the softest bed I’ve known since she kicked me to the curb three weeks ago. 

The last thing I recall is that same, oddly floral scent rising from the mattress.

###  #

It takes several minutes for me to realize that I’m awake. 

Cobweb dreams cling to my consciousness, wrapping me in a layer of sheltering confusion that keeps me from immediately marking the squeaking floorboard as anything strange or upsetting. Then there’s a second. A third. A whole damn symphony of someone walking down the hall. 

Suddenly, I am very awake, and very aware of the pitch black darkness surrounding me. All my previous joking about haunted houses comes back in a wash of panic that does nothing to get me up and moving. 

Breath coming quicker by the second, I try to move my hands; my arms; my legs. 

_ Nothing _ . 

Though I can still breath, and move my eyes, the rest of my body isn’t responding. Sleeping in the charger may have been preferable after all, I realize. It’s too late for that, though. The door latch clicks. 

I squeeze my eyes closed as air rustles around me, accompanied by the heavy feeling that I’m being watched. 

Half a minute later, the latch clicks again and I breathe a sigh of relief. Whoever they are, they’ve left me alone. They’ve— 

The mattress sways first to one side and then the next as something large and warm settles on top of me. 

A perfume, sweet and floral and familiar, invades my every sense as something soft and billowing falls around me, pouring like silk over my exposed arms. I hold my breath, heart pounding in my throat as the weight shifts and the mattress to either side of my head indents like hands are being pressed against it.

Still can’t move. 

There’s no telling who or what is on top of me, and with their weight settled on my hips—I should be scared. On some deeply buried level, I most certainly am. Yet, in this moment, all I can think about is Marnie and the way we were. 

Lips caress the shell of my ear before a rich, liquid-smooth feminine voice whispers, “You thought this place was unprotected, did you? A ripe fruit for the plucking?”

Um.  _ What _ ? 

My mind reels. Nothing about what’s happening makes any sense except—

A nightmare? A dream? I’d heard of people feeling like they were frozen; awake but immobilized and terrified of a creature in the room with them. There was even a name for it… What was the name for it?

“What should I do with you, hm?” The voice seems to drift as its owner moves lower. Lips brush against my neck, followed by a careful scrape of teeth. Are human teeth supposed to be that sharp? “Where did you come from, I wonder. The town? You look a little old for the usual teenage dares. Or were you just lost in the woods? A hiker? A  _ drifter _ ? Will there be anyone to miss you when you don’t come home?”

That rips away any thoughts of lovers, ex or otherwise. I take a breath and, to my relief, find that the paralysis doesn’t extend to my voice. “I don’t know who or what you are, lady, but you need to learn to keep your hands to yourself.”

“And  _ you _ need to learn why you shouldn’t just break into other people’s homes,” the voice counters. She does sit up, though, but that only presents new problems as her weight shifts against my hips. 

“I didn’t ‘break’ into anything,” I protest, struggling to keep my voice steady and sharp. “This is  _ my _ house. If either of us is trespassing, it’s you.”

Yeah, that’s a great thing to say to the hallucination holding you captive. 

Despite my worries, there isn’t an immediate reaction to my popping off. Just silence; one that lasts long enough that, if not for the continued weight of her, I might have thought she’d left.

Suddenly, she grabs my chin, turning my face up toward her. Though I try to resist, most of my body still isn’t my own. 

“Open your eyes,” she demands.

“Why should I?” 

“Do you want me to believe you?”

“I don’t particularly give a fuck what you believe. Whatever you’re doing to me, you can’t hold me forever.”

Her laughter is slim and surprisingly bitter. There’s another shift of her weight, one that sends pleasant chills through my body, and then her voice is again a sultry whisper beside my ear. “I think you’ll find I can hold you however long I desire. So be a dear and open your eyes.”

I open my eyes.

The room is just as dark as I remember. Annoyance, stronger than before, sparks through me, even as she sits back up. Again, her fingers are on my face; cupping my cheek. Her breath caresses my face, drowning me in floral perfume. 

“I can’t see anything. Was there a point to this, or are you just jerking me around?” 

“ _ You _ can’t, no,” she murmurs, sounding distracted now. Then she sits up in full, scooting back along my legs, and I feel hands traveling my hips. They pat around until she digs into one of my pockets and pulls something out.

“That’s mine,” I growl. She ignores me to the sound of rifling cards and the limited cash I have left.

“James.”

“What?”

“ _ You’re _ James?”

“Given that you have my wallet, and thus my  _ driver’s license _ , I’m betting you already know that.”

The woman huffs softly. And then, miraculously, she climbs off me. There’s a faint thump and a shake as something small hits the bed beside me. 

On pure instinct I reach for it, and am surprised to find that I  _ can _ . I blink, and hiss painfully as light suddenly invades my world again. It takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust, and when they do I realize that the lamp beside the bed is  _ working _ . 

Lurching up, I search frantically around the room for my assailant—

There’s no one here. I’m alone. Except for the miraculously working lamp and my wallet, set calmly beside me on the bed, there’s no evidence that anyone else has been in the room at all.


	2. Chapter 2

Night terrors. That’s the word. 

It only takes a quick wikipedia search to confirm my guess, and the description matches pretty well: an inability to move, common hallucinations of being menaced by some sort of entity, the presumption of being awake despite all evidence to the contrary. Sure, they’re pretty rare in adults, and rarer still for adults with no prior experience with them, but there was a note about such episodes being caused by stress. 

Well, I’m feeling pretty damn stressed. 

After casting another glare at the closed bedroom door, I peek once again through the evergreen branches obscuring most of the window’s view. With it cracked open I can hear the waves crashing gently against the beach just a short distance away. The light outside is hard to judge thanks to the proximity of the trees, but I think it’s getting lighter. My phone reads just past five a.m., which means dawn ought to be on its way. 

I drum my fingers against the mattress and scowl. Call me chicken shit if you must, but I couldn’t go back to sleep after…  _ all  _ that and the idea of stumbling around the house was less than appealing. Even after doing some half-hearted google-fu on the subject of nightmares, I can’t quite shake how  _ real _ the whole experience felt. I’d heard her voice. I’d felt her weight. I’d— 

Yeah. 

Trouble is, the bathroom is in the hall, and I’ve gotta go. It’s no longer the fear of falling down the stairs that keeps me rooted to the bed, but the unshakable notion that I’m going to find that woman in the hallway. 

In a way, that would be a relief. Except that it absolutely wouldn’t. 

After a couple hours of sitting on the bed, staring at wikipedia on my phone, I’d given in and cracked the window open so I could smoke. Maybe it’s ridiculous to care about the smoke indoors when I own the house, but Marnie always hated the smell. She’d lecture me even if I was only smoking in the garage because the snow outside was two feet deep against the walls. Smoking indoors drops the property value or some shit. Whatever. 

Even so, I blew the smoke out the window and stubbed the cigarette out against a ridiculous glass sculpture on the nightstand that I figured could be cleaned if it needed to be. Two more joined the first before I finally give up the silly notion of figuring out how to piss out the window without decorating the walls, get up, and ease my way toward the bedroom door. 

Feeling more foolish by the minute, I gently turn the door knob and carefully open it so as not to not give my movement away. The hallway is pitch black, precisely as I expected. I swallow my fear, fumbling with my phone’s flashlight feature, before edging one step after another down hall to the bathroom door. 

A test of the switch proves the mysteriously working electricity isn’t limited to my chosen bedroom. It takes only a minute to relieve myself, wash up, and dry off. Growing more confident by the second, I pause to splash cold water on my face, and admire the dirty-blonde stubble lining my chin. It’s well on its way to a short beard after my week-long trek across America. 

For a long minute I just stand there, rubbing my stubble and staring at the haggard hobo in the mirror. No wonder Grandpa’s attorney had looked so skeptical when I walked into her office. My hair’s greasy and flat, the bags beneath my eyes should have their own zip code, and my eyes are redder than a junkie’s. She must’ve thought I was a drifter—

Heh. Wasn’t that what the nightmare accused me of being? A drifter, breaking into an abandoned house to squat? 

In a way, that explains the whole episode. I’ve been stressed out, having health troubles, and I’ve always had a bent for telling myself stories. On some level, maybe I’m not as comfortable accepting the old man’s charity as I’m trying to pretend, and that all combined into a spectral guardian accusing me of trespassing.

Maybe I’m a little lonely, too. That would explain the rest of it.

I shake my head. “Get a grip, dude, and take a damn shower.”

I took a damn shower.

###  #

Feeling somewhat better than I had before, I march back to my room by the light of the open bathroom door, a towel around my hips and freshly shaven face feeling somewhat exposed and naked. Though I’d considered keeping the beard for a hot minute, the fact is that it itched like hellfire and I have no desire to wander upstairs and see if Grandpa’d left a beard trimmer anywhere in  _ his _ bathroom. Honestly, from the contents of the ensuite linen closet, I’m pretty sure there’s got to be one somewhere in the house. 

Grandpa was stocked for the apocalypse. The second floor bathroom is host to a veritable army’s worth of disposable razors, dollar store shampoo and other bathroom products. He must’ve shopped at Costco on the regular. 

I get all the way into the bedroom, bending to grab the duffle bag from the floor, when I realize something is wrong. Frowning, I stand upright and take a slow turn around. 

At first glance, the room is exactly as I’d left it; three cigarettes on the nightstand, mussed bedspread, pillows stacked against the headboard and my phone lying black-faced on the windowsill. There’s a sound somewhere distant, like neighbors’ voices drifting through the open window—

The window’s closed. 

A shiver runs along my shoulders, like spectral fingers dragging themselves over my skin. I jump despite myself, looking behind me to find nothing but old-timey furniture and the open bedroom door. Quickly, I shut it, wincing at the sound it makes, and fumble with the knob for a lock that isn’t there. 

Why the hell don’t these doors have locks? 

Shaking my head, I back my way over to the duffle bag and drag it onto the bed. I don’t bother smell-checking the clothes I put on. I’m too busy keeping an eye on the bedroom door, half expecting it to open while my pants are around my ankles. 

It doesn’t. 

I lace my boots back up, grab an old switch knife from the duffle, and once again slip into the hallway. 

I can still hear the voices, though they’re low enough I can’t quite make out what’s being said. There’s a hint of something else, too, like music beneath them. 

Now that I’ve actually thought about it, the idea that this could have been neighbors is nonsensical. There are no neighbors out here. The stretch of beach near the house is too rocky and small to attract many people, and Grandpa owns— _ I _ own—most of the woodland behind the house. There’s no one around to be talking, particularly not this early in the morning.

There’s also no one to hear me scream.

I check my grip on the knife as I ease toward the stair-end of the hall. The closer I get, the more distinct the voices become, and the better I can see a flicker of lights against the hallway walls below. They’re as erratic in colour as the voices themselves, and the variety of sounds underscoring them. 

A laugh burbles, unbidden, up my throat and I have to clamp my mouth shut to keep it from escaping. The television’s on. 

Which either means the house has electrical issues—not impossible, actually—or…

The third step down creaks beneath my weight. I pause, wincing, but the TV remains on, and no one appears in the open living room doorway. 

Another two steps and I reach the first floor landing. Just as my foot touches down, a lamp snaps on in the living room. Furniture creaks. Footsteps move away. 

I make it to the doorway just in time to catch a shadow of movement pass into the kitchen, and out of sight around the refrigerator. 

The living room itself is exactly as I saw it yesterday, save for the TV playing some busy-looking action flick and the remote tossed onto a blanket thrown across the couch. A coaster, marred by a wet condensation circle, is set on the table beside it. Somehow, it’s that simple, mundane detail which calms me. There’s nothing supernatural about a ring of condensation; the exact opposite, actually.  _ Somehow _ , that’s what convinces me there’s nothing supernatural here at all. Why would a ghost or a demon conjure such detail? 

No, this is just an intruder. A  _ ballsy  _ intruder, at that. 

“Hey!”

I stride quickly across the room, switchblade gripped tight, and barely register the sound of running water before I step into the bright-lit kitchen. “Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing—”

The woman at the sink barely glances in my direction, and my heart nearly bursts. 

She’s beautiful. No, that’s an understatement. That’s an insult.  _ Beauty _ is too drab a word to describe her. But so are ‘gorgeous’, ‘radiant’, ‘incandescent.’ I can think of no adjective that properly describes the  _ beauty  _ radiating from this woman like a palpable force, grabbing me and dragging me to my knees.

The switchblade drops harmlessly from my fingers as I struggle to finish whatever it was I was saying. I had been saying something, right? It was important…

Or maybe it wasn’t important at all. 

She finishes washing her dishes—I  _ let her _ wash dishes? I made her work with those hands? Those precious, delicate hands?—and she grabs a towel off the counter to dry them. 

How I wish I was that towel. I want to touch her; to be touched  _ by _ her. I want her fingers wrapped around every inch of me. I—

Something’s wrong. But what? Instinct wars with reason; one side of me screaming that I need to get up and  _ run _ . Run fast. Run far. Never look back. 

But too much of myself is content to stay here, prostrate before this effervescent beauty as she finally turns to face me. Tears prick my eyes. Tears of joy, or longing, or terror, I have no idea. All of the above?

“Rule number one,” says the woman, “No weapons for you. Not until you’ve proven yourself trustworthy.”

A flash of irritation surges up through the baseless adoration. Why should I have to prove myself? She attacked  _ me _ ! She—No. That couldn’t be right. Right? A beauty like her wouldn’t do that. 

I try to respond but my mouth doesn’t want to open. And that’s fine, because she’s still talking. 

“Rule number two: Your name may be on the deed, but this is  _ my _ home. You’ll do well to remember your place.”

Another wave of irritation bordering on anger boils through my veins. It was my  _ Grandparents’ _ home. Grandpa built this place with his own hands. 

But Grandpa must have also known she was here, right? It had only been a few weeks since he died. Was this woman one of his tenants? That would make a sort of sense. 

Again, I try to voice the question. My lips move, but no sound emerges. 

“Rule number three: No loud noises during the day. You’ll do best to switch to a more nocturnal sleeping schedule as quickly as you can, unless you’re naturally the quiet sort.”

Her perfect lips twisted in a wry sort of smile. “Somehow, I doubt that, though.

“Rule number four: No dogs. No cats, either. If you want a reptile or bird or something, talk to me about it first.”

My left eye twitches. My lips crack open. 

If the woman notices she doesn’t give any indication. Instead, she crosses the room and gracefully drops into a crouch to collect my switchblade from the floor. My breath catches in my throat at the nearness of her. When a lock of her hair brushes against my hands, my longing to touch it properly causes one finger to twitch. 

My finger  _ moved _ . I try to focus on that; on the desire to run my fingers through her hair. 

Another finger finger lifts, just the barest millimeter. 

The woman pauses in her examination of my knife to narrow her eyes at me. “James, what are you doing?”

She said my  _ name _ . It rings like heavenly bells in my ears. Tears prick my eyes; both joyful and frustrated. This isn’t  _ right _ , and I’m so grateful. 

Another finger lifts, followed by a fourth, and a fifth. 

My voice is the rusted, broken croak of a man dying of dehydration. “What—are you—doing—to me?” 

I register the surprise in her eyes as, all at once, details emerge. 

Suddenly, I’m aware that while my brain has registered her beauty, it never told me what she  _ looked _ like. It was as though something short circuited, bypassing any ability to get a read on what I was looking at in favour of the  _ feeling _ of what I saw. 

Her beauty dims. The paralysis that was choking the life from me lifts as my hand shoots out to grab a lock of her hair with trembling fingers. Her dark, pitch black hair. I stare in dumb shock, before I lift my gaze to hers.

She’s still pretty, sure, in a purely objective sense. 

The woman crouched next to me, whose strange, wide eyes are filled with bone-deep terror, is smaller than I would have guessed and built with bird-like delicacy. Her voluminous hair is long enough to pool on the floor beneath her; inky dark as a void, and luxuriously soft. But it’s her eyes I keep coming back to.

Fox eyes. That’s the first word to come to mind, though I couldn’t have said why. It’s not like I’ve ever seen a fox in real life, and try as I might to conjure a mental image, my mind is fixated on the pair currently boring into my own; fiery orange with a pupil that’s slitting thinner and thinner by the second. 

Her voice is calm and serene despite the way she looks at me. “Let me go, James.” 

Again, her beauty strikes me like a slap to the face. This time I recognize it for what it is: a weapon. Before I can get lost in her perfection, I take firmer hold of her hair and yank. 

She yelps in pain and the impulse to obey her ceases. Again, I see her for what she is. Whatever she is.

“I don’t know who or what you are, lady, but you’re gonna stop that right now,” I snap, struggling to keep my voice even but firm. Maybe it’s sexist, but I was taught to never hit women. If she keeps this up, I’m going to break that rule. I might feel guilty about it later—I already feel guilty about keeping hold of her the way I am—but  _ she started it _ . 

The woman’s breath comes a little quicker; panicky. Good.

She wets her pretty, plump lips with the tip of a perfectly human-seeming tongue, then says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The fuck you don’t. I suggest you give me a damn good reason not to call the police right now, or I swear—”

She laughs; her voice a little too high to be calm, but the way her eyes narrow and her voice takes on a mocking tone make me reconsider what I said even as she replies, “Oh, please do. Call your police. That sounds quite reasonable to me.”

I run my thumb over her hair, my brow furrowing as I consider that. 

The woman leans in, so close that my body remembers the feeling of her weight on top of me and I instinctively recoil. A tremor of cold dread runs down my spine as I realization hits me: “You’d just whammie them, wouldn’t you?”

“I have before. They aren’t resistant, like your grandfather was.” She pauses, then adds in a strangely sheepish way, “Or even as much as you are. I should have realized it might take a little while to kick in, but when you seemed susceptible…”

“You just assumed I was an easy target.”

“Can’t blame a girl for trying, can you?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I really can.” 

“Why?” She lifts an eyebrow, seeming genuinely curious. “It isn’t like I did anything to you. Just laid down the ground rules for this relationship. You are, after all, a big, strong,  _ young _ man with certain urges who might get the wrong idea about little ol’ me, otherwise.”

She bats her eyes as she speaks, her voice coquettish in a way that’s so practiced and so quietly  _ bitter  _ it takes me a minute to catch up to her implications. How visibly  _ scared _ she is. How hard she’s trying to hide that fact. Taking a deep breath, I force myself to reconsider what happened earlier in the bedroom. I’d been so terrified I hadn’t internalized what she was saying at the time, so much as I’d been focused on my own feelings of helplessness.

That didn’t make her attacking me okay, or her presumptuous “rules” something I was going to agree to, but… 

I grit my teeth for a moment before releasing the tension in my jaw and shoulders. 

“I’m going to let you go,” I say as my fingers slowly ease off their grip, “And  _ you _ aren’t going to fuck with my head any more. We’re gonna go back to the living room and talk this out like sensible people. Agreed?”

“I’m keeping your knife. For now.”

“Deal.”

###  #

She resumes her place on the couch, pulling a blanket over her pajama and tank-top ensemble. I settle in the armchair, studying her. 

Without her…  _ gifts _ … on display, I was able to see just how small she really is once she stood up. Granted, at six-foot-three, I’m fairly tall for a guy. Slender, sure, but big enough to make most people feel small. This woman barely comes up to my chest. The sort of woman most would mark as fragile; pliable; weak. Between that, her incredible cheekbones and well-defined features, there’s no way she wouldn’t get her fair share of attention even without her inhumane eyes and supernatural whammy. Attention it doesn’t seem like she necessarily wants.

_ Supernatural _ . I try not to shake my head at the very thought of it. Whatever’s happening here can’t be described any other way, but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me expecting this all to be one long, weirdly detailed dream. 

“Okay,” I say after several beats of silence. “You know my name, now—” and my driver’s license number, social security number, credit card number… not that the last one would do her any good. “—Who are you, exactly?”

“You can call me Rose.”

“Is that your name?”

She shrugs one dainty shoulder. “It’s what your grandfather called me.”

“Right. So we’re starting this with non-answers. That’s helpful.”

She rolls her eyes, one corner of her lips quirking upward in what might be good humor. “Would it help if I gave you the old ‘ _ you couldn’t pronounce it _ ’ line?” 

“Depends. Would that be a lie?”

“Depends,” she mocks, “How's your Japanese?”

“Uh… I know ‘sushi.’ ‘Manga?’ ‘Domo arigatou…’” I inwardly cringe, even as I say it. My pronunciation is probably terrible, and her wincing chuckle seems to confirm my guess. Grandpa is probably rolling in his grave.

“Then no,” she says, “You probably can’t, and I’d rather not listen to you try. Rose works.”

“Fine. Rose it is. So, impolite as this is, what the hell are you?”

“What are  _ you _ ?” Her eyes narrow dangerously. I don’t feel the same tug of control as before, but it doesn’t take a genius to see she feels interrogated. 

Good. Colour me an asshole, but I feel like I deserve to interrogate her at least a little. 

“Seriously, lady? You’ve just assaulted me  _ twice _ in a ‘house I technically own,’ to paraphrase your own admission. I get that you can bend the local law enforcement around your little finger, but I’m willing to bet you couldn’t manage an entire courtroom so can we cut the crap? I’m willing to talk. Let’s  _ talk _ .”

Rose’s throat works visibly as she continues to eye me. Finally, she looks off to the side and her shoulders slump. “I told you this place isn’t my house, but it is my home. I wasn’t lying. I am also  _ not  _ the one who brought you into this.”

Her statement is such a non-sequitur that it takes me a few seconds to catch up. When I do, that muscle beneath my eye twitches again. “You’re blaming Grandpa?”

“He was supposed to leave the house to me,” she snaps, eyes glinting briefly holographic in the lamplight as her head whips back to face me. “We had a deal.”

I resist the urge to call her bluff, but barely. “Right. And why would he do that? He built this place for my Grandmother. My Mom grew up here. If it should have gone to anyone, it should have been her.”

Which was strange, wasn’t it? I’d thought the whole situation was strange to begin with. Grandpa and I had never been exceptionally close. I’d loved him, sure. In as much as it’s possible to love someone who never let you all that close; who kept his visits short when you were a kid, and maybe called on your birthday once you hit eighteen. And yeah, if I’d known he was sick and needing help, I would have come. But I never imagined he’d leave this to  _ me _ . Not when my mother is still quite alive. 

“Maggie has her own home,” says Rose, with an air not unlike a younger sibling bitter over their older sister’s gains. “This one is mine every bit as much as it was hers. More, even. I was here before any of them.”

“Before Grandpa?”

Her lips quirk. “Would that surprise you?”

“After all… whatever that was?” I gesture vaguely to the kitchen, then glance my company over once more. Sitting here in relative normality it would be easy to doubt everything that’s happened so far. But she hasn’t denied any of it. Not outright. 

And now she’s  _ implying _ that she’s far older than she looks. 

The hair at the back of my neck prickles as the otherworldliness of our situation begins to intrude once more upon the conversation. Try as I might, I can’t lie to myself about this. Maybe I’m wrong. I’d love to be wrong. I don’t believe I am.

“No. It doesn’t.”

Rose relaxes further, settling back into the crux between the backrest and arm of the couch. “You’re quite a bit like him, you know.”

“Grandpa?”

She nods. “I don’t know that he believed in the—as you would say—’supernatural’ before he met me properly. Once he did, however, he jumped into it with both feet. Never looked back.”

She looks wistful for half a second before she adds. “None of that—” Here her voice takes on a quavering, mocking falsetto—“ _ ‘This isn’t possible! Magic doesn’t exist! Humans are the only intelligent species around!’ _ That most of the humans in these parts default to.” 

The words come rote beneath the ringing in my ears: “What can I say? Seeing is believing.” 

_ Humans _ . I thought I was prepared to hear that. My mind still reels at how casually she dropped it into conversation. 

The woman sitting across from me isn’t human. 

“So…”

“It really is rude to ask people what they are, you know.” The smile in her eyes doesn’t erase the frown on her lips. “What do you  _ think  _ I am? I’m curious.” 

“Lady, I—”

“Rose.”

I clear my throat. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin,  _ Rose _ .”

“You don’t watch movies? Read books?”

I grunt noncommittally as I lean back in the armchair, studying her. “If I make a guess, will you tell me?”

She shrugs.

“How many guesses do I get?”

She smiles.

“Right. Seems we’re doing this. So…” I drum my fingers rhythmically against the armchair. 

While I never would have labeled myself a “nerd” by any means, I can’t claim to have  _ no  _ familiarity with pop-culture mythos. My teenage years might seem forever and a year behind me, but they had, in retrospect, prepared me for this conversation with some great 90s fantasy series like Xena Warrior Princess and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 

Vampires… 

Rose’s teeth seem human enough, from what I’ve seen. She is pale, and has implied a fondness for the dark, but she doesn’t seem dead or quite evil enough to qualify as a bloodsucker. 

Then again, it was my neck she’d tried to kiss. 

My frown deepens with that memory, and I shift uncomfortably in my seat. Better to focus on the task at hand. What else do I know about her?

Her eyes. Those are her most striking feature by far, and I find myself meeting them without consideration for her strangely hypnotic stare. Her pupils have expanded with her relaxation, but they’re still noticeably slit, tipped vertically like a cat’s. Or like a fox. Hadn’t I thought that before? Fox eyes. 

If our vampire lore was right, that didn’t fit at all. But what did?

Both her attacks were based on sex and beauty. That fit vampires, to some degree, but if memory serves it fits a fair amount of other beings. Supernatural creatures are fictionalized as a sexual lot, anyway. The only other name that springs to mind has nothing to do with foxes, either, but it seems more likely than the first guess. 

“Succubus?”

Her eyebrows lift marginally. “Close. Very close, actually.”

“Then I’m afraid you’ve got me stumped. I remember the demons Buffy fought more by costume than name.”

She blinks rapidly, her head tilting to one side in a way that’s so fundamentally canine it’s uncomfortable. Werewolves weren’t sexual, were they? Outside of Twilight, anyway.

Then again, furries  _ are  _ a thing. 

“It’s a TV reference,” I say, when she doesn’t seem to snap to it.

“Ah! The Vampire Slayer. It’s been a while. No, you haven’t gone far east enough, I’m afraid. No anime on the roster?”

“Not much, no,” I admit, even as I recall her mentioning a Japanese name. Of course her… species… would be from Japan. Heh.

“Mm.” Rose considers me a long moment. Suddenly, she leans forward with eyes bright and a cheerful smile that shows far too many teeth. “Let’s make a deal, then.”

“A deal?”

“Yes. I will give you three days.” She holds up three fingers. “If you can figure out what I am in that time, the house is yours. If not, you leave. Deal?”

“The house is already mine.”

Her eyes narrow briefly. “We can fight about this, James. You may win in the end, but it will be at a cost.”

I study her face, and the bizarre stillness of her posture. No human is ever that still. I may be a city boy, but somewhere in my reptilian brain I recognize the stillness of a predator sighting prey. Yeah, I might win. I might also lose some flesh in the process.

Whoever—whatever—Rose is, she doesn’t want me here. That’s abundantly clear. But she doesn’t want to go toe-to-toe with me, either. So why—

“Is this some cultural thing I’m not picking up on?” I blurt, before I can think better of it. “You have to dance in circles and won’t just talk to me? I’m trying to work things out, here.”

“And I’m trying not to lose my home!” She stands abruptly, the knife she’d taken from me clutched in trembling fingers that seem…  _ wrong _ . Her nails are too sharp and solid for comfort. “Tell me, how would you feel with den after den upturned? Chased miles and countries away from your homeland? When you finally find peace only to have them come once more? I made a place here with your grandparents. Your grandfather had enough of the old world left in him to recognize and accept me, but  _ you _ ? You stink of  _ this  _ world. You reek of pollution and filth; of  _ cities _ . I barely recognized your scent when I was on top of you.”

Without taking my eyes off hers, I lift the collar of my shirt away from my skin and take a sniff. All I smell is soap. Admittedly, that is an improvement from a week’s work of stale car and cornship funk. “I took a shower.”

Rose deflates. Her fingers look normal again as she tosses the blade onto the couch and stands there, somehow managing to embody pride and look utterly forlorn at the same time. 

I keep my gaze locked to hers, trying to read the words in those unfathomable eyes. “What do you want me to say, here? That I’m comfortable with you living here? I’m not. You’ve done nothing but attack and threaten me since I got here.”

“Would you have done any differently?”

“You never gave me the chance.”

Her eyes narrow once more as her head cocks to the side in such a canine manner that I half expect her to whine at me. As the silence drags on, I tug the cigarette pack from my pants pocket, tap out a cigarette and put it to my lips. When I pat around for my lighter, however, I can't seem to find it. Swearing, I break the lock between our eyes to search more thoroughly.

A second later, there’s a faint  _ ‘fwumph’  _ sound, a flash of heat across my face, and strange shadows cast all around me. I look up to find Rose’s hand nearly in my face, palm open and the tiniest flame dancing a few millimeters above her skin. The hair on the back of my neck raises. There’s no fuel for this flame, and it doesn’t seem to be burning her. 

But I can’t show her I’m still scared. That would be the biggest mistake of my life, I’m sure of it. So I meet her gaze again, wicked and sparkling in the firelight, and lean in to light my cigarette. 

Once it’s embered, Rose extinguishes the flame with the closing of her hand. We each lean back.

“Three days,” she says, and before I can argue she’s gone; out of the living room and across the hall to what I vaguely recognize as the basement door. 

“Three days,” I mutter, wondering if a derelict house in the middle of nowhere is really worth all this trouble.


	3. Chapter 3

I eventually managed to get some sleep. It hadn’t been  _ that _ late when I met my unwanted ‘tenant,’ given I’d first gone to bed at roughly six p.m., so I got a fair ten-ish hours in. The sun was well up when I returned downstairs to find the house abysmally quiet. 

“Rose?”

Silence is my only answer. The TV in the living room is dark. The blanket that had been on the couch is gone. My switch knife has been relocated to the coffee table, but other than that there are no signs that the encounter ever actually happened.

It could have all been a dream… or, given the switchblade, a hallucination. If it’s either, the latter seems more likely.

I swallow hard, unsure whether I should be hoping that’s true or if I ought to be praying it isn’t. 

There is a creature in my house. One which looks human, but isn’t. One which is beautiful, and beguiling, and is willing to do whatever it takes to push me out of this place. 

Again, I have to ask myself if staying is worth the trouble. 

But where else would I go?

I can’t go back east. Even if I had the gas money, there’s nowhere there  _ to _ go. 

My thoughts flash to Marnie, the last time I saw her, red-faced and angry and sad, standing in the doorway of her screened-in porch as she watched me leave. Not saying anything to stop me. 

Had that been gratitude in her eyes, or am I just editing the memory to see what I wanted to see? She wouldn’t tell me to go, but we both wanted it over. I had wanted it to be over. 

I scrub a hand over my face and turn toward the basement door. There’s one way to be sure I’m not crazy, but when my hand touches the doorknob I hesitate. 

The basement is the one area the lawyer didn’t take me into when she showed me around the house. I hadn’t questioned it then. I hadn’t questioned much of anything. She’d just waved at the door, said something about a furnace, and continued upstairs. 

Would I be walking directly into Rose’s bedroom, if I went down there? It seems likely. There were no personal effects in any of the upstairs rooms, and the attic had been my grandfather’s. She had gone down here last night. She hadn’t returned, so long as I’d been in the living room, but given the tidying-up that’s evident, well…

Either she was or she wasn’t; down there; real. 

This is getting me nowhere.

I open the door upon an old wooden staircase that disappears into pitch darkness. There’s no drawstring cord for a light, or anything, so I reach for my phone. That’s when a thought occurs to me. 

With a grimace, I reach over and flip the switch next to the front door; the very one I’d tried yesterday afternoon. 

A light at the bottom of the stairs illuminates naked frame-work enclosing the stairwell, exiting into a plain, concrete floor basement. Cautiously, I descend until I can see the small space, maybe half the length of the living room above, with a cast iron furnace at the far end and a homely washer and dryer set on the adjacent wall. There’s a few shelves, general laundry and garden supplies, a tool chest… nothing out of the ordinary. 

Was it a dream after all?

Relief sags my shoulders, weighing me down until I thump onto the steps with a sigh. Just a damn dream. It—it  _ had _ to be.

So why, under that relief, is there a tiny kernel of disappointment?

###  #

The rest of the day crawls by in a blissful haze. The house, for all it’s horror-story facade, is incredibly serene. With the salt-tinged air blowing cool off the beach, I spend the day opening the windows and assessing the place’s state of repair. 

As I’d thought, the roof and porch both need some serious tending, but the foundation seems to be well intact and the water pipes run clear without any of the complaints commonly associated with ancient houses. It’s such a miracle, in fact, that I find myself chuckling at the notion of magic existing all over again. 

The biggest problem, by far, is the yard. In addition to letting the forest grow so close there might as well be trees sprouting in the living room, the backyard—demarcated by a rotting, half-collapsed fence—is a smaller forest of saplings, weeds, and ant beds. The rusting skeleton of an old swing sits in one corner, near the corpse of a fire pit and grill. These look only marginally better than the mouldering shed in the back corner, and I have to wonder how long Grandpa was actually sick. Maybe he hadn’t had any guests in a longer time than we all thought. Maybe he’d just been living off retirement funds the past few years while the house slowly died alongside him. 

“Stupid old man,” I mutter, ignoring the hitch in my voice. “You could have just called.”

He wouldn’t have, though. No more than I called him when I got laid off and Marnie started sleeping around. Still, the idea of him dying here—alone, forgotten—the more I think about it, the worse I feel about the way things ended. It hadn’t needed to be that way. 

Belatedly, one of my few memories of Grandpa surfaces at the back of my mind. I think I was about nine years old… 

I’d known in a strictly theoretical way that the plates had once been my Grandmother’s. Something about wedding china, whatever that meant. To me, they were just the “Christmas plates;” the ones my mom refused to use for any occasion but our big holiday dinner. I was old enough to think the idea of having plates you only used once a year was pretty dumb, and young enough to say so, loudly, whenever I was told to be careful with them. So of course, that was the year I dropped one. 

Looking back on it now, I don’t know if it’s right to say my mother’s reaction was entirely unwarranted. Grandma’s death had been very painful for her, and two years was recent enough that the wound wasn’t really healed. She was distraught, is what I’m saying, and because  _ she  _ was distraught, so was my dad. The whole thing snowballed and, wallah, Christmas Dinner was canceled. At least, it was for me. I got sent upstairs with promises that Santa (who I didn’t believe in, said so, and set off a whole other fight) would be “hearing about this, young man.”

I was surprised when Grandpa came knocking at my door a little while later with a small present bag in hand. For once, the sight of a present didn’t help; it just made me more uncomfortable and miserable. 

“What do  _ you  _ want?”

“Boy.” Grandpa crucked his finger under my chin, forcing me to look him in the eye as he bonked me lightly upon the nose. His tone was serious, but his dark eyes were twinkling as he said, “Watch your tone, there.”

I rubbed my nose as he sat on the foot end of the bed. “Sorry, Grandpa.”

“That’s alright.” 

He seemed to be expecting something, so I gestured to the bag. “What’s that?”

“That’s for your momma,” he said. “Would you like to see?”

“Shouldn’t she open it?”

“She will. But that’s why it’s in a bag, you see. Easy to wrap back up. Go ahead.”

He handed me the bag and, though I didn’t really want to, I reached my hand in through the crinkled coloured paper until I felt something heavy and slick inside. I pulled it out and frowned at the plate in my hands. It was one of the Christmas plates; a whole one. 

“You were bringing her a new one?”

Grandpa shook his head. He took the plate long enough to turn it over, and pointed to a spot just around the bottom rim. There was a crack in the porcelain, and when I traced it up and down I could make out the slimmest hairline fracture running all the way through the plate. 

My heart jumped in my throat. “This was my plate.”

“The one you broke? Yes.”

“But…”

Grandpa sighed and took the plate back. He slipped it into the bag as he said, “I didn’t much care for the way you spoke to your Mamma down there, James. I know why you did, though. She was upset, and sometimes when people are upset they can’t hear what you’re saying to them very well. That goes in both directions, you see.”

I didn’t, not really. I still nodded. 

“The things we  _ do _ , though? That can be a bit harder to ignore.” He put the bag in my lap. “We can’t change the past, but sometimes, with a bit of patience and the right tools, we can mend it a little. I want you to give that to your Mamma in the morning, alright? Tell her you’re sorry—”

“I did!”

“I know. But she didn’t hear you, so you’re gonna have to say it again when she’s calmed down a bit. Remind her that you didn’t mean to, and give her the plate. Tell her I helped you fix it.”

“But I didn’t…”

“You weren’t allowed downstairs, or you would have,” Grandpa said, without hesitation. “But tell you what. Let’s call this an I-Owe-You. One day, you’ll fix something for me, and we can pretend we did it together, too. Okay?”

Honestly? That sounded about as dumb as getting mad over a plate, but if it made Grandpa happy, and Mamma stop being angry at me, then I figured I could go along with it. 

“Deal.”

“Deal it is,” said Grandpa. The old man ruffled my hair, and then he was gone, leaving me with the plate and the hope that this would work out the way he clearly expected it would. 

In the end, he’d been right. Mamma cried when I gave her the plate—a good cry—and hugged me, and apologized for being so upset. Christmas went on as previously scheduled, and I never gave any more thought to the deal we made back then. 

Not until now, standing on the back steps and looking at the sorry state my Grandpa’s domain has fallen into. I’d thought a bit about going into town and looking for work, earlier, but… 

Well, no buts. I’m still going to need a part-time job, eventually. The kitchen is surprisingly well stocked for the house of a dead man, but I’m going to need things that will have to be paid for with money I do not currently possess. Things to live on; things to fix this place up—at least enough that I can start advertising for clients again, or sell it, or something. I’ll figure that out when I get there. The point is, well.. 

Grandpa put his heart and soul into running this bed and breakfast. The least I can do is put in a little effort to bring it back into shape. 

###  #

Needless to say, it’s a fuckton easier deciding to do this sort of thing than actually  _ doing  _ it. The biggest issue is figuring out where to start.

For starters, I’m not the  _ most  _ construction-savvy kind of guy. I am, as may be guessed from my overall air of wit, charm and poverty, an artist. 

Yes. I’m  _ that  _ asshole. 

Life had been going pretty well for me, despite. I’d skipped out on community college after a few semesters to work full-time for a start-up game company that tanked in its second year, then got hired on as a junior environmental designer at a longer lived studio. There, I shipped a project before getting laid off along with all the other juniors. They declined to renew my contract when it came time to hire for their next project, and I moved on to yet another studio, and then another, and another. I migrated my way, job to job, up from Florida to New Jersey where I met Marnie and eventually quit a promising new career in car sales to land a sweet senior producer position with a triple-A publisher that was supposed to see me into retirement.

Two months later, it didn’t. 

Between all of that and spending most of my adult life in apartments, not houses, my “manly” house fixing skills are pretty close to nonexistent. I theoretically know how to clean a theoretical gutter. Time at Marnie’s place taught me how to tell when a roof needed to be fixed, and how to call a repairman. Somehow, I don’t think that approach is going to cut it here.

For seconds, after I found some paper and a pencil in a random drawer and made myself a list, I’ve realized there’s a lot more to do than I first thought, and I’m not sure I have all the tools to do it. Case in point, the backyard needs to be rescued from itself. That’s pretty self-apparent. However, in order to do that I’m going to need a lawnmower, gloves, and something to hack down the saplings with. 

An axe, maybe? Machete? Do people actually use machetes, or is that just a movie thing?

I have to assume Grandpa had a lawnmower at some point this century. It’s likely inside the dilapidated shed, which I can’t get to without cutting a way through the yard first. Also, there’s the matter of the rotting equipment scattered through the yard that needs to be taken…  _ elsewhere  _ before I can proceed with mowing. And then I’ll just hope that I don’t run over a random nest of scrap metal hiding in the brush or something.

Maybe I should just go into town, instead. 

No. No, I promised Grandpa I’d help him out. Even if I’d mostly made the promise to a ghost, and I can’t even be sure he’d want this, I’m not going to back out of it just because it’s difficult. Especially not five minutes later.

Sighing, I put the paper under a loose brick from the random pile stacked next to the back porch, then wade into the half-baked jungle on a mission to find the holy lawnmower. 

To my surprise, I make it there without being besieged by either snakes or shrubbery-obsessed Knights. I am, however, covered in mosquito bites and spiderwebs. Need to add insect repellant to the list. 

There’s a padlock on the shed door, which is almost as amusing as the broken window directly beside it. Between that, and the hole in the roof, I can distinctly see the covered mound of a lawnmower inside. Several shelves filled with supplies cling to the remaining walls, waiting to be perused. 

So, score one. Now to just get inside. 

I grab the padlock in one hand, examining it for… something. It’s about as old as the shed itself, rusted and close to falling apart. There is a keyhole on the bottom side, but given the state of the thing I’m not sure it would function even if I found the right key. Hell, I probably need a tetanus shot just from touching the thing. 

However, the padlock is secured to the rotting, green-tinged and warped door frame. I take another look at the rest of the shed, calculating my odds of pulling off the dumbass idea I just had.

Y’know what? Fuck it. Give dumbass ideas a chance.

I might be skinny and prone to sitting for extended periods of time, but I’m not as out of shape as the cigarettes and occupation would imply. I rear back and kick the wood beside the door as hard as I can. 

The wood crunches, and so does my foot. 

Groaning, I stagger back, hopping on my good foot. “Fucking door!”

The door does not reply. The crack in the wood next to it mocks me.

_ Haha _ , it says,  _ you thought there wouldn’t be consequences? If i’m going down, sucker, so are you. _

“Who’s a sucker, here? I have news for you, buddy,” I tell it as the pain fades. When I can put weight on it again, I shift into a mock boxer pose and hop back and forth on my heels as I gear up for a second kick. Need to aim for exactly the same place again. “I’m gonna win this! Just you watch!”

The second hit does a little less damage to me, a little more damage to the shed. The whole thing wobbles, sending ominous puffs of dust and mold spores down from the roof. 

I back up, looking again at my handiwork. The crack is bigger, and the padlock’s back plate is listing to one side. One more hit and I should be able to pull it free of the wood. 

“Got you on the ropes, now,” I mutter, dancing back and doing my best Rocky impersonation as I brace myself for the last impact. 

The doorframe splinters beneath my heel, and the whole structure wobbles. My balance goes off and I fall backward, landing painfully on one hip as the shed continues to sway. Crashing noises come from inside, my only warning before a large section of the roof gives way and crumbles inward. Dust, mold, and god knows what else puffs all around me as I scramble to my feet and back away into the jungle. 

Behind me, someone claps. 

Rose stands on the porch, elbows leaned against the railing and my list tucked between her fingers. Her long dark hair drops heavily over one shoulder, all it’s weight collected in a short braid at the very end that swings back and forth like a pendulum in the breeze. Slowly, her hands come to rest palm-to-palm; the silence now broken only by a rising symphony of agitated insect song. 

“Did the shed say something nasty about your mother, or were you just looking for an easy target? It was already halfway to dead, you know. Don’t think it needed the help.”

“Where the fuck did you come from?” 

If the topic change surprises her, Rose doesn’t show it. She settles more heavily upon the railing and lifts both brows. “My room.”

“And where is that, exactly?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Uh, A) it’s my house, and B) I searched everywhere this morning. You weren’t in it.”

Rose sighs. “We’ve been over this, James. It isn’t your house until I say it is. And if you’re going to run around here murdering the defenseless outbuildings, I really don’t want you to know where I’m sleeping.”

“Okay, come on. You know damn well I wasn’t trying to murder the shed.”

“Do I?”

I gesture to the paper in her hand. “My list is right there.”

“This? I assumed it was a serial killer thing. Targets for execution.” Her smile is lopsided and sharp, but surprisingly amused. She stands up and descends the porch, wading into the backyard. Either she spends more time out here than I would have thought, or the woman really is magic. The plants don’t seem to hinder her in the least. In fact, if I didn’t know any better I’d have thought they were moving themselves ever so slightly to allow her passage.

Rose slaps the list against my chest, pausing just beside me to say, “There was a key, numbnuts,” before she lets the list go and moves past me to the shed. I grab the slip of paper before it can be blown away and turn to watch as she approaches the pile of debris. 

“What are you doing?”

“Picking up your mess.”

Rose places her hands on the still-upright front of the shed, leaning in close to the wood. For a moment I can’t figure out what she’s doing, but then I make out the faintest whisper beneath the mounting bug song around us. She’s murmuring something, and I don’t think it’s in English. 

Just as I’m considering moving closer, something inside the shed begins to shake. All my attention rivets to the collapsed wall, and whatever the hell is inside that mess. Were raccoons nesting inside the building? Possums? Bears?

Do bears build nests? Nevermind. Doesn’t matter. 

What does matter is that something is lifting the dropped wall back into place, and Rose is standing way too close to that nonsense. 

I dart forward, grabbing her away from the wall. She twists in my arms as I pull her into the jungle. A sharp slap across my face brings stars to my eyes, and I let her go. I barely register the thump, thump, thump, of several hard…  _ somethings _ hitting my calves as I grab my cheek. “Shit, ow!”

“Do  _ not _ touch me,” Rose snarls, her fox eyes flashing in the sunlight and sharp canines gleaming. 

“I was trying to save you!”

“From the  _ shed _ ?”

I gesture sharply over her head toward it. “There’s something inside that thing, Rose, it could have—”

My words cut off as I get a good look at the shed. It’s… in-tact. Well, as in-tact as it had been before I messed with it, at least. It still looks ready to fall apart again, but whatever had been moving inside of it had apparently stopped at somehow reattaching the roof and straightening the walls. It had even fixed the window pane next to the door. 

Or had I only imagined that it was broken to begin with? Suddenly, I don’t know what to believe any more. 

“There’s nothing in the shed, James,” Rose says. It’s clear she’s still annoyed, but she isn't as angry as she had been. “Nothing living, anyway. Not in the sense that you would understand it.”

“But how did…”

“I knew last night was too easy.” She rubs the bridge of her nose, then snaps her fingers in my face until I look down at her. Holding both hands up to me, and waving her fingers she over-enunciates, “Ma-gic, James.  _ Supernatural _ . Remember?” 

My silence must speak for itself, because Rose scoffs and starts to leave.

“Wait, if you magic-ed it back together, then why is it still…” I wave my hand loosely at the dilapidated wreck. “Can’t you just…?”

“Wave my hands and make it good as new again?”

“Yeah,” I say, wincing at how it sounds. Like I’m whining. 

Though I fully expect her to blow me off again, Rose surprises me by stepping back around into my line of sight. Her gaze is locked on the shed, and though at this point I’m beginning to doubt my own judgement about the world, the way it works, and just life in general, I’d still say she looks a little wistful. Sad, even. 

“I didn’t fix it, exactly,” she says. “I don’t have that sort of talent. I just reminded it of the form it’s held the longest, and talked it into staying that way for a while longer. I can help it retain its shape. I can’t stop it from aging.”

“Oh.”

“Mn.”

We stand there for a moment, locked in mutual silence, before Rose glances up at me from the corner of her eye. “What  _ were _ you trying to do? In general. I know you wanted  _ in  _ the shed.”

“I thought I’d clean this place up. It looks pretty bad.”

She hums a note of agreement, then offers, “I was never good with yard work.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed.” My sarcasm is answered with a derisive snort, and once again Rose turns for the house.

I almost grab her arm before I realize my mistake and pull back. She still stops, baldly eyeing me like a dog getting ready to bite. “Sorry. I just… if you can talk a shed into standing itself up, do you think you can talk a lock open?”

“I told you there’s a key.”

“And I’m telling you there’s no way a key is going to work with  _ that _ .” I gesture back to the rust-encrusted lock now re-attached to the shed door. 

Rose glances between me and the lock for a moment, then walks once more to the shed. She grabs it, inspecting the device. Then her shoulders slump. I hear another few whispered lines of Japanese. A soft click later, Rose steps away from the door leaving the lock dangling open behind her. 

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Rose replies breezily. “Just… try to keep it down, okay? Nocturnal, remember?”

I hadn’t. Of course, I had also decided that she didn’t really exist. Wincing, I take a deep breath and say, “I’ll try my best. Sorry if I—”

There’s no one behind me anymore. I look to the porch, thinking I’ll catch the door shutting, but it’s already closed with no sign that it was recently opened. Rose is gone, thoroughly as if she’d never been there in the first place.

I look back to the lock for confirmation that this wasn’t all in my head, too. It’s still dangling there. Open. Taunting. 

“Fucking magic,” I mutter, and make my way carefully inside the shed.


	4. Chapter 4

The rest of the day passes in a state of timelessness; the kind of day that seems to last forever while coming to an end in the blink of an eye. By the time the sun is blazing red on the horizon, the backyard is already shrouded in blue. I’ve cleared away most of the saplings, pulled them out through an excavated gate, and piled them on the beach. I’ll let them dry out for a day or two, then try to burn it. Or I’ll just try to burn it. “Dry” doesn’t seem to be something this section of forest does too well; not this time of year, anyway. 

I’ve got most of the junk moved off to one side of the yard, too. There were a few other items of note buried among the weeds: the frame of an old bike, a pair of rusted out hedge trimmers, and what looks like it might once have been a patio table. I may be able to mow tomorrow, if the mower proves functional.

Not gonna lie, I’m feeling pretty proud of myself. It was a long day, and a lot of work. Possibly the most I’ve gotten done in a while, and it feels good to actually accomplish something. 

As I head inside, I tug my stained and sweat-damp shirt off over my head. I really need another shower, but my stomach chooses that moment to complain about not having had anything to eat since the breakfast I’d scrounged up that morning. 

That’s when I notice it; the tantalizing aroma wafting down the hall.

Hardly daring to hope, I take three steps toward the kitchen when I hear Rose yell, “I know you aren’t dragging your dirty shoes down my hallway.”

Wincing guiltily, I look down at the muddy footsteps behind me, then step backward onto a helpful doormat, toe them off, and continue on my way. I pass the stairs and turn into the living room in time to see her emerge from the kitchen carrying a large pitcher of tea. 

Rose stops in her tracks, eyes dropping slowly down my naked chest before jumping back up to mine. “Dinner’s on the table,” she says, looking quickly away. “You remember where the dining room is, right?”

“Uh, yeah. Should I change first?”

“It’s fine. Dinner will get cold.”

“Okay. It’s just you’re looking a little—”

“I’m not embarrassed!”

It’s a battle to keep the grin from my face as her cheeks turn a lovely shade of pink. 

“Well, if you’re not embarrassed,” I agree, turn, and head back to the sliding wood door that opens onto a small dining room. 

The room is big enough for four people comfortably, six people less comfortably. It’s one exterior wall is taken up with a large window that manages to glimpse a stretch of ocean between two dark evergreens right outside the building, but that’s not what draws the majority of my focus. I’m far more interested in the clearly homemade meal set out on the table. There’s a casserole, a bowl of mixed steamed vegetables, a plate of roasted chicken, rolls, and a steaming apple pie. 

I drape my shirt over the back of a chair and sit as Rose pours me a glass of tea, then one for herself before taking the chair opposite.

“Wow. This is, uh… wow.”

“You were taking care of the backyard,” Rose says, not quite looking at me. “You aren’t—do you pray?”

Caught a little off guard by the last question, I blurt, “Not really the religious type, no. You?”

“No,” Rose agrees. She gestures for me to help myself, and when my stomach growls again, I comply. 

“I don’t mean to look a gift horse in the mouth, but seriously, you didn’t have to. I appreciate it, though.”

I catch Rose’s faint smile in a flicker of golden sunset light. “I enjoy cooking. It’s always better when there’s someone—or someones—to cook for.”

“You cooked for the guests?”

She nods. “And clean. Your grandfather tended to the outdoor work, repairs, paperwork. I managed the house and clients. It wasn’t always that way, but after Keiko died…”

“You knew my grandmother, then?”

“I did. I knew Maggie, too, when she was younger. Though she’d probably tell you I was a hallucination, now.”

“Why would she do that?” 

Rose’s lips thin. When I finish gathering my own food, she begins filling her own plate. “That happens, sometimes. Even kids who know the mystical for what it is when they’re young will grow up and have their heads turned by nonbelievers.”

“You must not care much for science, then.”

“I have no issue with science,” Rose scoffs. “Science is just a way for people to measure the world, after all. My problem is with people who abuse it to justify their own ignorance.”

I take a bite of the casserole, primarily rice with obvious bits of chicken, peppers, mushrooms and onions scattered throughout, and have to pause as the curry flavour hits my tongue. I hadn’t been expecting it, but while spicy it’s also utterly delicious. I moan softly around the mouthful, swallow, and say, “This is amazing.”

Rose laughs softly, and this time her smile is genuine and directed at me when she says, “Thank you.”

One large gulp of tea later, I somehow manage to remember what we’d been talking about. Between the food and the sheer—dare I say— _ magic _ of her smile, it’s difficult to do so. “Mm. What do you mean, though?”

“What?”

“About science justifying ignorance.”

“Ah.” Rose leans one elbow on the table, curling her fingers beneath her chin. “Just that science was founded on the principle that nothing is ever truly certain. That’s why you perform experiments over and over again, right? You constantly check your work, and your conditions. You accept that when new information comes along you’ll have to check again. Just because something seems true today, doesn’t mean it will seem true tomorrow, when the facts have changed. There is no certainty, only the best possible guess. Do you follow?”

“Yeah.”

“But all too often, that isn’t how people  _ use _ science. Not around here, anyway. Maybe that’s because it’s difficult for some people to accept that there are no right answers, or maybe it’s just because they’re lied to about science’s base nature. I don’t know. The trouble is, they get taught a set of ‘rules’ learned through science, and then, when the facts change and those rules are no longer valid, they get upset at the new reality because the old one was the ‘rule.’ They, incorrectly, believe that rules in science aren’t allowed to be rewritten, not realizing that they’ve missed the entire point.”

“Huh. Never thought about it that way, but… yeah.” But after another minute's thought, I realize there’s a second point layered beneath that one. “Do you think magic can be measured through science?”

She laughs again, and I find myself entranced by the sound. Not in the same way I’d been entranced by her the night before, more that it’s simply pleasant and pretty. As is the way she moves her hand to shield her mouth like she’s embarrassed by the sound. “They haven’t yet, but I think it’s possible. One day. So many people here call us ‘supernatural,’ but we aren’t. We’re just as natural as humans are.”

That seems… fair. Strange as all of this has been, I can’t deny her that. “So, kids who grow up knowing about the supernatural—like you say my mother did—grow up getting told it doesn’t exist, and then…”

I don’t even have to finish the question. As the words leave my mouth, I understand how easily that would happen. It would be just like a kid who grew up believing in Santa Clause. Even if their parents  _ insisted _ he was real—really, truly real—the kid would learn from all his friends that, no, Santa Clause  _ doesn’t  _ exist. 

Slowly, over time, they’d learn to believe society at large. Not their “lying” parents. Even with the evidence right in their faces, with advances in makeup and technology wouldn’t it be easy to say that, no, it couldn’t be real? Isn’t that what I should be telling myself right now? 

Probably. And yet, every fiber of my being swears what’s happening here  _ is _ real, and I would be a fool to ignore it. 

But is this why Mom and Grandpa’s relationship was so strained? It can’t be all of it, but I could see this playing a part.

When I meet Rose’s stare, she nods once, as though she can read my very thoughts, then lowers her eyes back to the table. “What are you going to do with it?”

Startled by the abrupt conversational shift, it takes me a moment to catch up. “Uh, what?”

“The house. If I relinquish it to you. What are you going to do with it?”

I swallow back a spike of annoyance. Given everything she’s said, I’m starting to understand why she’s so territorial about this place. That doesn’t mean I’m going to let her throw me out of a house I still ‘ _ technically own _ .’ 

“Well, as you probably guessed from this afternoon, I figured I’d start by fixing it up. The backyard isn’t the most pressing issue, but it seemed like a decent place to start.”

“You had a pretty good list going,” Rose admits. “We haven’t had proper guests in.. a while. After Osamu fell ill, I tried to keep up with it on my own, but between the house and his care… things got away from me.”

Osamu. Of course she’d use that name for him. It feels strange, but also appropriate; Mom had explained, once, that Grandpa used the name “Otto” because people around here liked it more than his given one. I didn’t understand the implications of that explanation until far, far later. 

“You were tending to him, then?”

“As best I could. I can’t—I don’t—” Rose presses her lips together, staring at the remains of her dinner as she struggles with whatever it is she wants to say. “I’m not good with people, James.”

“I’m shocked.”

“I’m  _ serious _ ,” she snaps, clearly not appreciating my dry humor. There’s a particular brightness to her eyes that kills my own rising temper, and I hold a hand up pleadingly.

“Ok. I’m sorry. You’re not good with people. What about it?”

“It became… problematic. He needed doctor’s appointments and medicines from pharmacies. I did my best to make sure he got where he needed to go. I forced myself into an unnatural sleeping pattern so I could go to the stores for him. Even though it was hurting business, I tried—but then they wanted him to go to a ‘home.’ Somewhere else. More comfortable.”

A cold, terrible feeling settles in my gut as I feel where this is going. “You wouldn’t let him?”

“He didn’t  _ want _ to,” she corrects, with another fleeting pass of anger. With a sigh, Rose sinks backs into her seat. “And I didn’t press him, even though I knew it would have been better. I didn’t want to lose him. Not before I had to.”

It’s a lot to take in, but I let the silence fill the air between us for a long while as I try to absorb the information. 

I have to do it, though. I have to ask that same question I’ve been mulling over since his lawyer first reached out to me: “Why didn’t you call me?”

“He wouldn’t hear of it,” she whispers. “He said Maggie would put him in a home for sure if she found out. I suppose he assumed you’d tell her. He wanted to die here, where he belonged. So, I let him.”

I remember all the things my father had said about putting the man in a home, and hate that there’s probably a point to that. It doesn’t ease the weight in my stomach; the food turning into a sour, hard lump. 

Finally, after several minutes of silence, I find my way to asking the only thing there seems left to say, “You loved him, didn’t you?”

“He was the only family I had,” she replies so faintly I might not have heard it all. But I did. 

I drain my tea in an effort to relieve the guilt and sorrow threatening to choke me, then rise and move to collect some of the dishes to return to the kitchen. I stop when Rose says, “I’ll get those.”

“You cooked.”

“You worked,” she replies as easily, meeting my eyes as a bit more of her usual haughtiness slips back into her voice, “And you desperately need a shower. Go before the reek seeps into the walls.”

A laugh escapes me, as I set my dishes back in place and give her a mocking bow. “As the Lady wishes.”

Rose scoffs in reply, and says nothing else as I head upstairs, heart hurting and mind reeling with the new information. 

###  #

I’m clean and dressed in record time, but by the time I’m downstairs in a pair of sweats and a thin sleeping shirt, the dining room is already empty and there’s a sound of running water from the kitchen. It still seems kind of shitty to me to let her do the housework alone. Sure, maybe that’s the bargain she had with Grandpa, but we haven’t made such a bargain yet. Besides, I was always raised to think that the chef shouldn’t have to do the dishes, too. 

I’m sure there’s going to be an argument, but I start toward the kitchen intent on helping anyway. It’s as I’m passing through the living room that I happen on an idea. 

There is indeed an old record player inside the cabinet, and a large collection of vintage vinyl just beneath it. They’re organized both alphabetically and into sections by genre, with each cardboard divider labeled in my grandfather’s careful, typewriter-esque print. I flip through until I stumble across pure gold, slip it from its paper sheath, and set the record to spinning. 

The trumpets blare beneath the vinyl scratch, followed by a set of drums and strings. I crank the volume as Sinatra’s smooth voice breaks into the air. 

In the kitchen, Rose stands still in front of the sink. A small pile of dirty dishes is set to her left, and a half-filled drying rack is on the right. I hum along with the music as I step up beside her, snagging a hand towel from a hook in front of the cabinet. 

“What are you doing?”

“Helping.” 

“I said—”

“That I should take a shower, and I did. D’you want a sniff to prove it?”

Rose snorts, and plunges her hands back into the bubbly water. Chuckling, I grab up a plate and get to work beside her. 

The music fills the silence between us, making it easy to ignore any lingering awkwardness. Though Sinatra has never been among my all-time favorites, my mother played enough of his work over the years that I’m well familiar and quickly humming along to the songs as Rose gives me the odd direction on which item belongs in what cabinet. She washes, I dry and put away. By the time she’s unplugging the sink, we’re both swaying to the beat of  _ That’s Life _ . From the corner of my eye, it looks like Rose may even be smiling. 

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” I ask as I put the last bowl back into its cupboard and close the door. 

Rose snags the towel out of my hands, and uses it to dry hers as she leans her hip against the counter. She won’t meet my eyes as the last notes of the song fade, a horn blares, and another begins. 

Finally, she sighs, drops the towel over the rim of the sink, and looks up. “Have you figured it out?”

“Figured what out?”

Her head tips in that strangely canine fashion I’d noticed the night before. I remember, even as she prompts: “James, what am I?”

My good humor dies instantly. That damn ultimatum of hers. I’d completely forgotten about it after the long day, the work, and the heartache of our dinner conversation. It had been so easy to just let things ride as they were that I’d forgotten the specifics of our fight the night before; forgotten that we are, in a strange sort of sense, rivals. 

Even if it is  _ technically _ mine.

My jaw clenches briefly before, calmly as I can, I remind her, “I never agreed to play this game, Rose.”

Colour springs to her cheeks as her vibrant, baffling eyes narrow at me. “What was all of this, then?”

“All of what? My  _ help? _ The music?”

The protracted silence answers for her.

It’s my turn to scoff. I rub a hand over my face, and push my lengthening curls from my eyes. Now that they aren’t greased up, they’re back to falling in my eyes every few minutes. I’m going to have to start tying them back, or just cut them. “I don’t know what my helping out would have to do with your weird little game, but no. I’m not playing. I’m not trying to—to—get information? On you? Or whatever it is you’re thinking. I was just trying to lend a hand. That’s it. So can we stop with the antagonism for like, five minutes?”

“And the music?”

“What about it?” I gesture vaguely toward the record player. “Who doesn’t like Frankie?”

A very naked look of confusion crosses Rose’s face before her impassive, cold mask slams back down again. She takes a step away from me, then another before turning on her heel and marching for the door. As she passes into the living room, she lifts two fingers and snaps, “Two days left, James.”

“I told you I’m not playing!”

The only answer is the slam of a door. The  _ basement  _ door.

“Hey!” Spurred on by both anger and curiosity, I jog through the living room, yank it open, and take the steps down two at a time.

But when I reach the bottom, I find the basement as empty as it ever was. 

Lifting both hands futility toward the ceiling, I rage silently for a few minutes before scrubbing my palms together and saying to the silence, “Fine! Fine, if that’s how you’re going to be, then I guess we don’t have anything to discuss, do we? Two days until you get the hell out of  _ my _ house.”


	5. Chapter 5

I stay up way too late that second night, blasting Sinatra to make a point and playing games on my phone. Half of me wants to troll google for information on just what the hell I’m dealing with. Even if I don’t want to play her game, I can admit that more information is undoubtedly better than less. Except actually doing it feels like giving in. So I don’t.

When I finally can’t deny how tired I am any longer, I head upstairs with increasing trepidation. I’d spent most of the day too busy to think about anything that had happened the night prior, other than meeting Rose and our fighting. The entire incident in the bedroom felt like a distant nightmare. 

It doesn’t now, as I debate the lack of door locks and the perfectly made bed awaiting me. 

Rose must take her “housekeeping” seriously. The bedsheets have been changed, the pillows are fluffed, and to my horror she’s apparently washed and folded all my laundry. The urge to go back downstairs is so strong I’m halfway out the door before I think better of it. Screaming into an empty basement doesn’t sound like a great time. What’s more, I’m not sure what I’d be screaming about. Part of me wants to thank her and apologize—those clothes were far, far  _ beyond  _ rank—and the other half wants her to apologize for invading my privacy. Not that there was anything in that bag which I cared to hide. 

In the end, I settle for moving the dresser in front of the door, peeling off my sweats, and cracking the window to let a gentle, sea-salt breeze in alongside the heady smell of the forest. Outside, I can hear the distant crashing of waves against the shore, a few owls, and other nighttime noises. I’m tempted to close it again, but then figure I’d do better getting used to such sounds if I plan on staying for any extended period of time. Maybe it’ll act as a sort of white-noise, and help me sleep through the paranoia.

Finally, I tumble into the bed, flick off the lamp on the bed table, and instantly lose consciousness. 

Somewhere, in the murky, thoughtless darkness a creature is screaming. Its cries are desperate and wretched, and filled with a bone deep anger as difficult to understand as it is to explain. 

“Remember your promise,” whispers a voice I can’t place. 

The screams die, replaced by a weight settling over me. A waterfall of dark hair cascades around me as a floral, wild scent envelops me. There’s no resistance when I bury my fingers in her hair, pulling her close and claiming her, even as she claims me. 

A fever builds between us, pitched and all-consuming. The heat prickles like fire beneath my skin, when, just as I feel fit to combust—

Sunlight splashes violently against my eyes. I jolt upright, gasping for air and reaching for a woman who doesn’t exist. 

Anger boils inside me for one hot moment. Had she snuck into my room again, only to—but no. No, the dresser is still set over the door. There’s no smell of flowers on the air. It was just a dream. Just my body wanting something it  _ absolutely _ cannot have. 

Groaning, I flop back onto the bed and throw an arm over my eyes, silently begging my hormones to knock it off already. 

Though I’m tempted to sleep in, actually having a reason to get up and going gives me enough energy to drag myself out of bed. The fact that Rose won’t be up for hours yet spurs me through a cold shower, and into some work clothes. After that, it seems a small matter to head downstairs for some coffee and cereal. 

From there, the rest of the morning goes by so peacefully it’s tempting to forget everything that happened yesterday—hell, everything that happened the past few months—and even nonsensical nocturnal yearnings. Instead, I can open up all the windows in the house to a brisk breeze, and finally unearth the lawnmower from the shed. 

Miraculously, the ancient push-mower does work, though that takes half the day to figure out. After getting it out of the shed, I uncovered it and spent a few hours going over the machine in detail, checking for rust and rotted belts and the like. As I’d said, I’m not much of a Mr-Fix-It, but if there was one thing my dad had taught me it was motors. He was more concerned with cars, particularly vintage ones, but on many levels the basics are similar. 

One of the things I noticed was that the gas tank was empty. As luck would have it, there was a spare gas can in the shed—empty, but I still had a twenty to my name. 

Rather than consume what little fuel was left in the charger, I googled the nearest station and set off on foot. It should’ve been a thirty-minute walk. That didn’t seem bad. 

I forgot the majority of the path was uphill. By the time I reach the station, I’m shirtless again with sweat rolling down my back and breathing problems that make me seriously reconsider my smoking habit. Marnie always said it would be the death of me, and she’s probably right.

The station proves to be a dilapidated horror movie shack set behind a row of pump stations from the 1950s. Some real “Cabin in the Woods” type nonsense. I make it all the way to the door before I have to set the can at my feet and sink down to sit against the spider-encrusted wall. I’m still there, elbows on my knees and head bent between them, when the door whacks me in the side. 

A man drawls, “You okay there, son?”

“Just… underestimated that walk… gotta catch… my breath.”

He grunts. “Whereabouts did you break down?”

I shake my head. “No breakdown. Lawnmower.”

“ _ Lawnmower _ ? Out here?”

I wave a hand vaguely in the direction I’d come. 

“No one out that way but beach,” says the man. It takes me a second to parse that statement. There’s no one who lives out there, there’s only the beach. But it isn’t only beach. 

What the hell is the name of Grandpa’s place? I struggle to remember, but now that I’m thinking about it, I realize that I never saw a sign for it, and no one had ever mentioned it by name to me. It was always and forever just “Grandpa’s place” or “the house.” 

I take a deeper breath, finally starting to get my lungs back under control. “The bed and breakfast.”

“The what?”

“Otto Kobayashi?”

The man grunts a note of acknowledgement and steps further out of the establishment. The door shuts behind him. I look up to find a heroine-thin older man with papery, sun-browned skin standing over me. He’s dressed in tan overalls covered in oil stains, a flannel shirt, and a moth-eaten baseball cap that does nothing to disguise his baldness. There’s a nametag clipped to the left strap of his overalls that’s so old, worn and otherwise illegible that he might as well have not bothered. 

“ _ You’re _ the grandson?” he asks, both his expression and his tense, strap-pulling posture declaring his incredulousness. 

“The one and only,” I say with my best smile. “At least that I’m aware of.”

I’m sort of used to this reaction, albeit not from this quarter. I wasn’t around grandpa enough for people to be freaked out that we’re related. But mom? There was a strong tendency for everyone to assume I was adopted. Long story short, my mother’s genes got buried beneath my dad’s blonde-and-blue-eyed germanic ones. We still think she and I look a fair bit alike—I lucked into her cheekbones—but we seem to be the only ones who share that sentiment. 

The station attendant stares at me, and I can practically see the calculations running behind his eyes. Finally, he decides on, “What was that about a bed and breakfast?”

Heyyyy, it’s not the question I expected. That’s fun. “Ah. He ran one, right? That’s what he told us.”

“Huh. First I’d be hearing of it. Then again, the old man kept to himself pretty good these past few years. Only really saw him every other Thursday, when he stopped in. And that pretty nurse of his a few times.” 

He must mean Rose. I nod. “He’d been pretty sick a while, or so Rose told me.”

“How it seemed, yeah.” The man nods again, and I can’t help but notice that the tension remains in his posture. “Was wonderin’ when one of you’d show. Figured it’d be ol’ Maggie, though.”

I swallow a surge of resentment toward the implicit accusation. “None of us knew. Grandpa always wanted us to stay away.”

“Did he?” The attendant hums at that, but strangely, his posture seems to relax. His gaze wanders off, toward the dense wood all around us. “Guess I can see that. Not really a great place for people, this.”

“What do you mean?” 

“Eh. Just the woods can get to a body, if you aren’t used to them. See all kinds of weird things, out there.”

Great. It really is like I wandered right into a classic slasher film. All I’m missing is a company of loose and dubiously sober coeds at my back. “Uh, yeah. I can see that.”

“Can you?” The old man looks amused. He nudges my gas can with one steel-toed boot. “What’s this about, then?”

“Lawnwork. Gotta mower that’s outta gas and a jungle that needs taming.”

The man grunts, picks the can up, and tromps to the nearest pump station. I pick myself up as he goes, calling, “Hey! I can only do about five, yeah?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Seriously?”

The man glances up at me, the barest skeleton of a smile clinging to his thin, chapped lips. “Call it a welcome present for Otto’s grandkid. You gonna be staying out there?”

“For a while.” I wander over while the numbers on the old ticker-style read out flip by. “Haven’t really decided what to do, yet. Figured I might as well fix the place up until I do.”

“There’s a lotta good land attached to it.”

Not sure if that’s supposed to be a question or not, I shrug and nod. “That’s what his lawyer said.”

The man nods, like he hadn’t been sure himself. “Might be some people around would pay a pretty penny for that, if not the house itself. Might not need to put yourself out, doing so much work for nothing.”

“Some people like…?”

“Subtlety ain’t really my thing, is it?” The man laughs at himself, and I chuckle along. “Don’t mean to be a vulture. Otto prolly never would’ve considered selling it, but that one might’ve been born around here for how well he took to these parts. Not everyone can be like us, though. If you’re already thinking of selling, well… I’d hate for the place to go to someone who wants it more for some ‘aesthetic’ nonsense than genuine care for the area, you know?”

“Sure,” I said, starting to feel uncomfortable again, though I can’t place why. Small towns tend to breed the sort of guy like the one standing in front of me; dyed-in-the-wool locals who react to every newcomer as a potential threat until proven otherwise. Having blood ties to the area meant I could possibly be accepted, but I’d have to prove that I was just as loyal to “the area” as they were before that happened in full. 

That said, given the state of the station and it’s presence on a road with no cars for miles, I highly doubted the man could afford the property taxes on the land, much less the amount I’d be legally obligated to sell it for. Which was assuming that no one else would come along with a higher bid than bottom-shelf pricing. That felt like a lot of assuming. Even with a terrible stretch of beach and an aging, unmodernized house, the land I was now sitting on held a lot of timber, and was—as he’d put it—”aesthetically” pleasing enough to warrant interest from a range of people. 

Hell, I could probably carve it into chunks and sell it to doomsday preppers. It was out of the way enough for that, right?

The pump station dings. The attendant releases the nozzle, tightly secures the lid on the can, and toes it in my direction. 

“You knock yourself out, boy. If you decide you wanna talk about numbers, though, you come on back here. I’m around most every day but Sunday.”

I collect my prize with the friendliest smile my car sales experience can muster, shake his hand in thanks, and begin the long-ass hike back to the cabin. 

Most of said walk back is spent waiting for a chainsaw wielding maniac to come storming out of the woods. That doesn’t happen. Instead, I arrive back at the house around noon to find a lidded tumbler of lemonade and a wrapped sandwich set out on the porch with a note that commands, “Eat it.”

I roll my eyes, but the grumbling in my stomach convinces me to do as directed. I take the drink and sandwich with me into the backyard. After eating, I fill the lawnmower’s tank and spend the next several hours fighting with nature until the space within the dubious bounds of the rotting fence more-or-less resembles a yard again. I’ll need a trimmer to get the weirder patches, and there’s still a few sapling stumps that need to be pulled from the ground itself, but the place is no longer a terror hole of potential snakes and wild beasties. 

Speaking of wild beasties… I’m standing with my back to the porch railing, freshly drained lemonade in hand, and surveying my work when the rail creaks beside me. A pitcher appears, alongside a heady waft of floral perfume as Rose leans past me to refill my glass. 

“I woke you again.”

“Mm,” she hums. “Figured you would, though. The whole ‘taming the jungle,’ thing.”

“Grandpa had to have mowed during the day, back when he could.”

“Used to be the first thing he did in the morning, since I stayed up long enough to put breakfast on the table,” Rose says in a small, hushed voice. 

“Huh. I’d wondered how that worked with your nocturnal thing.” My words sound ridiculous, particularly in the face of her wistful, haunted stare lancing across the backyard.

She’s leaning so close to me that I could kiss her cheek without hardly moving. A slight breeze whips across us from the sea, toying with her hair and sending dark tendrils dancing across her face. Her brow furrows, and her nose twitches. 

She turns me, eyes once again sharp and bright. To my absolute shock, there’s no hesitation at all when she leans in until her nose brushes my neck and her breath dances across my skin. 

“Whoah! Hey!” I jump away to the side, sloshing my lemonade all over my feet. “Personal space! Have you heard of it?”

She snorts disdainfully and rubs the back of her wrist across the bridge of her nose. She sneezes three times, each time shaking her head while maintaining a glower that could strip paint off metal. “Who were you talking to?”

“Uh, the woman who’s molested me, what,  _ twice  _ now?”

“I  _ smelled  _ you. That isn’t molestation.”

“Not making it any better. What the hell, Rose?”

She opens her mouth like she’s going to continue arguing, when she deflates just as suddenly. Both her hands cling onto the pitcher she’s still holding; now half empty from jostling. If we hadn’t had an ant problem before, we were definitely going to now. 

“Sorry. I should have asked.”

“Yeah,” I snap. “You should have. Not that I’m very interested in being smelled. Now what’s the problem?”

“You went somewhere this afternoon.”

“That isn’t an explanation.”

Rose howls in exasperation, throwing her head back and squeezing her eyes shut. “Do you have any idea how long the explanation would take?”

“No, because you still haven’t tried.”

She hangs her head back down, going quiet a moment. Then she stands up, and takes the pitcher inside. I assume that must be the end of it. Rose hasn’t gotten her way, so she’s stalked off in a huff as usual. How or why grandpa put up with this, I really don’t know. 

No, I realize a moment later. He  _ wouldn’t  _ have put up with this. Not any of it. 

The Grandpa I had known wasn’t the kind of man who compromised unless he damn well wanted to. He listened, sure. He was respectful. And then he went about his own way, keeping his own council until the end. The way he died proves it.

Rose seems… similar, except for the “respectful” part. Way too similar, in fact. She wants what she wants, and has no interest in middle grounds. She’s bossy, and territorial, and domineering.

And she makes lemonade. I stare at my glass, frowning at the thought. She’s the kind of woman who’s annoyed at being woken up, but who still helps when asked to do so—sometimes before she’s asked; the kind who leaves a meal for someone who’s hungry, even if it means she had to get up in the middle of her night to do it. The sort of person who completely rearranged her schedule to care for an old man who needed help. 

Her words are sharp. Her actions are more often kind. When she isn’t attacking me, that is.

I take a deep breath, sigh, and polish off my lemonade. The backdoor opens and Rose dangles a wet washcloth at me over the railing. 

“For your feet,” she says, refusing to meet my eyes. 

“Are we gonna talk?”

Her cheeks puff in annoyance, but she nods. I take the cloth. 

###  #

We settle on the porch after Rose retrieves a pitcher of iced tea to replace our lemonade, and I’ve more or less cleaned the mess from my feet. She sits with her back to the wall, hands clutched around her glass and feet tucked daintily to the side. I perch on the steps, back to the rail, where I can watch both her and yard.

When Rose finally speaks, her words are measured and quiet. “You need to be careful around here, James.”

My teeth clench so hard I’m going to break one. She glances at my throat, no doubt seeing the apparent tension, and leans forward. “I know that isn’t what you want to hear from me, but it’s true. Osamu knew how to interact with the people that live around here. So did Maggie, once. You don’t.”

“And you think vague ‘thou-shalt-nots’ are going to help?”

She sits sullenly back and staring at her tea. “Perhaps not. I’d like to help you, but…”

“But what?”

She goes quiet, mouth drawing into a frown. From the corner of my eye, I see something move on the porch next to her, but when I look there’s nothing there. Just a fold of her skirt. Rose shifts restlessly in place, back arching slightly as she works her feet out from underneath her and lets them dangle off the porch edge. Finally, she says, “But there will always be gaps in what I tell you.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

I close my eyes. “Tell me this isn’t about your stupid game. I told you, I’m not playing.”

“And I’m not giving you a choice,” Rose barks. 

“God—” My words devolve into a groan of frustrated gibberish. I set my glass sloppily aside and rake my fingers into my hair. “What the hell do I have to do to convince you I’m not your enemy? God knows why I don’t want to be! You’ve given me so very few reasons to like you, but us? We are on the same side. Or we could be, if you would just get over yourself and talk to me like a sensible person. Okay?”

To my shock, and mild discomfort, Rose’s eyes are bright and brimming. Her voice betrays none of that, though. It remains steady, if low and dubious, as she asks, “How could we be on the same side?  _ You  _ aren’t the one  _ losing your home _ .”

“What? I—” Oh. Wait. 

Okay, so, in retrospect that statement shouldn’t surprise me. Still, it hits like a frying pan to the face. Why hadn’t I realized this sooner? She’d said it, hadn’t she? 

Yeah. Yeah, she had. In fact, she’d said as much the night we met. I’d been so caught up in everything else that happened that night, I hadn’t really been listening. Which, I mean, she’d attacked me, so,  _ fair _ , right? But still… 

As the new understanding of her situation—and a lot of her attitude, probably—clicks into place, my mouth goes on autopilot. “No one said you have to leave.”

Rose blinks rapidly, her dark brow furrowing as a single tear rolls over her sharp, pretty cheekbones and down her chin. She wipes it away, gaze cutting across the yard as her face turns pink. “Right. You probably need a housekeeper. Is that it?”

I scrub a hand over my face, torn between annoyance and sheepishness. “Rose.”

She sighs. “Do you have any idea how it felt?”

“What part?”

“Any of it?” She tugs her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms protectively around them. Though I don’t think she’s looking at me, it’s difficult to tell between her thick lashes and the tilt of her head. Still, it feels like I can sense her attention crawling over me; assessing my sincerity. “Osamu… he was my friend. A very good friend. I watched him grow, and get old, and die. And when he was gone, I thought at least I would have this place and the memories we all had here. He always said it was taken care of. That I should expect someone to come, once he was gone. I thought he meant the lawyer. But then that woman brought  _ you _ .”

That does sound like it would suck; I have to admit that much. “What were you going to do with the place?”

Rose hesitates, then shrugs lightly. “Does it matter?”

“Maybe.”

She huffs. “Well, other than living here? I don’t know. Continue running the B&B, I suppose.”

Wordlessly, I gesture toward the shamble of a backyard. Rose follows the gesture with her head, then finally lifts her gaze to me. I raise my eyebrow, and she seems to get the question. 

“I could have hired someone.”

As the tension continues to evaporate, I’m able to smirk at her as I ask, “Someone who understood your weird hours, and nocturnal nature?”

“You’d be surprised,” she replies, answering my smirk with the faintest quirk of her own lips. “Who exactly do you think this place serves?”

That actually throws me. I look up at the house—meaning, from this angle, the porch roof and it’s spider habitat—and grunt. “Seriously? It’s a supernatural B&B?”

Rose actually laughs. The sound isn’t as open as the one I’d heard yesterday, during dinner. Still, it rings true and helps chase away more of the unease between us. “Yes, a supernatural B&B. Most of our clients aren’t human, anyway. Or, when they are, they’re more like Osamu.”

“Resistant?”

“Open-minded.”

“Heh. Alright, I can see that. So they don’t mind the yard so much?”

“Oh, no, that needed to be cleaned up,” she agrees. “It was definitely going to hurt our summer business. We used to host barbecues and stargazing out here.”

She sighs, wistful and sad as she tips her head against the wall and stares out across the yard. “Most of the clients come here to get away from the cities without entirely going back to nature. It’s part of why Osamu bought so much of the land around us. They can slip off into the forest and be themselves for a while, and still have proper showers and beds waiting on them when they come back.”

“And I guess the townsfolk don’t really know anything about it.”

“No,” Rose agrees, then frowns. “Why?”

“Hm? Oh, uh, I mentioned it at the gas station earlier. The guy there didn’t know anything at all about a B&B out… here… what?”

Rose stares at me hard, her entire posture so still she could be a statue. Her eyes are wide, and her pupils contracted to such tight slights there’s no denying her inhuman nature. “What gas station?”

“The one just up the road? About two-and-a-half miles up, just off the main highway.”

“The horror shack?”

I almost laugh, only managing to contain it due to the seriousness of her expression. “Yeah?”

She begins to sit up, then pauses, and wrinkles her nose. “May I smell you again?”

“Well there’s a question no woman has ever asked me.”

“James,” she growls.  _ Literally  _ growls. There’s a canine grumble beneath her words that is as impossible to miss as it is… alarmingly sexy in this context. 

“Uh. Sure?”

I try to remain still as Rose is suddenly there, hovering over me. I hadn’t even seen her move, but her knees press against my thigh as she leans in; her hair tickles over my bare chest as her nose hovers just over my skin. Her short, sharp huffs of breath remind me of my dreams and tantalizing shiver runs down my spine. 

Then she leans back enough to meet my eyes. “What was his name?”

It takes a minute to pull myself away from my decidedly unsolicited thoughts, and focus on what she’s asking. “Who?”

“The guy at the gas station.”

“Oh. Um…” I frown, thinking back on it. “Actually, he didn’t tell me. His nametag was too fucked up to read, too.”

Rose lands on her butt with an inelegant ‘hmph’. She presses both hands over her face and digs her thumbs into the corners of her eye. “ _ James _ .”

“Oh, please, say that in a more patronizing tone. My mommy-dom kink is just loving this.”

I flash her a grin as she glares at me. 

“McCoy is a snake. I can’t believe you spoke with him. He tried to buy you out, didn’t he?”

“Well, yeah.”

“And?”

“And what? He tried. So?”

“So, are you?”

“Am I what?”

Rose surges to her feet, hopping down the stairs to dance wildly in frustration and scream inside her closed mouth. She gestures broadly to me, the house, the entire area in a massive, obvious question. 

Not gonna lie, it’s pretty damn funny.

And yet… I don’t dare tell her that I considered it. That I’m still considering it. As much as I dislike her attitude, and while I acknowledge that the rationale behind her anger is understandable, there’s too much weirdness and hostility still between us for me to brush aside the payout that easily. 

“No,” I lie. “Found him kind of creepy, to be honest.”

Rose stares at me for a long minute, her hands slowly dropping back to her side as she visibly tries to read my honesty. Whatever she finds, she must like it, because slowly but surely the first truly genuine smile I’ve seen from her comes to rest across her lips. 

“Okay. Okay, I… Um, I should go start dinner, actually. Give me an hour?”

“You really don’t have to do that.”

“I want to,” she assures me, and darts forward to collect both our glasses. Her voice is softer, now; a far cry from the hostile, wild thing she’s been the past two days. “Please? It’s my job.”

I give my glass up to her, and nod. She flashes me another quick, small smile before disappearing indoors. And for a while, I just sit there, a little stunned and more confused than ever.

“What the fuuuuck?” I breathe to the spiders on the ceiling. I’m both surprised and elated when they don’t answer. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ;aslkjdflkdsj This chapter includes art from the lovely [Caporushes, whose website and contact details can be found here.](http://www.caporushes.com/)

Dinner is every bit as good today as it was the night before though it consists largely of leftovers. The bread is fresh, which is a nice touch; apparently homemade. If nothing else, Rose takes her job as the B&B chef-of-choice very seriously. 

“I’ll need you to go to the store tomorrow, if you don’t mind,” Rose says when I’ve polished off half my plate. 

“Um?”

“We’re running low on the staples,” she explains. “I’ll give you the list.”

I look down at my plate, once more finding myself off-put in the middle of a meal. “Yeah, so about that. I should tell you… I am flat-ass broke.”

Rose’s eyebrows lift. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, given that you said it’s been a while since there were any guests here, and it doesn’t seem like you have a job outside of this house… it’s going to be a bit before either of us has money for ‘staples’?”

“Were the accounts not transferred into your name?”

“What accounts?”

“James,” Rose sighs in a way I could almost get used to. “This was a business.”

“Right.”

“Businesses have to pay taxes. And show income. All those interesting little things.”

“Right, I knoooohhhh-Kay. Got it.” I think? Maybe?

“Mm,” she agrees, and again tries to hide a smile. “Surely the lawyer said something about that? Please tell me she didn’t have it liquidated?”

“Wouldn’t you have to be notified if it were?”

Rose shakes her head. “I… have an I.D. Technically. But we… didn’t want to put it under much scrutiny.”

So, on top of being a non-human her legal documents were also kind of sketchy. Actually, that makes a lot of sense. They would almost _have_ to be sketchy. 

I push the food around on my plate, thinking. “I don’t remember her saying anything specifically, but to be honest I wasn’t paying much attention. There was a packet she gave me, though. Something about his ‘paperwork.’ It’s in my bag. The answer’s probably there.”

Rose sucks in a breath, her cheeks staining with colour. It’s pretty clear she wants to say something waspish. 

Then, miracle of miracles, she lets it go with a whoose. “Alright,” she says, “Let’s look it over in the morning.”

“Will you be up?”

“For a while. I can be flexible, when need be.”

“I bet you can,” I say, and instantly wish I hadn’t. It comes out far more interested than sarcastic, something which I’m sure Rose noticed if her sudden stillness is any indication. 

“Soooo, uh, you don’t like the store, I guess?”

Not my most charming segue, but one Rose seems to welcome. “I told you. I’m not good with people. I… try to avoid them, as much as I can. These days they’re more willing to accept that my eyes are ‘just contacts,’ or some other such nonsense, but every so often someone knows better.”

“You can’t hide them?”

Rose shakes her head. “No. I knew a doctor who used to make prosthetics for our kind, where we need them. Coloured, non-prescription contacts included. They never work for me. There’s always something… _off_ about the way they look. Like pupils which don’t move, or colour that’s too vibrant or solid. Nature gave us wonderful camouflage, but it was never meant to be perfect.”

“So when Grandpa was sick and you had to go out…”

“I wore sunglasses a lot. People still stare, but it’s better than being hunted again.”

 _Again_. That one word carries me through the rest of dinner, and into the kitchen. 

After the scene last night, I’m tempted to just take a shower and go to bed. Somehow, though, Rose’s newfound attitude makes me want to risk it. Once more, I throw on some Sinatra and join Rose by the sink. 

In the reflection cast against the window above the sink, I see her roll her eyes. 

“What?” I chuckle. “Do I smell that bad?”

“Not today, no. You smell like grass and lemonade. Is the music necessary?”

“You don’t like it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then don’t complain,” I tell her, taking the first plate with a grin and a wink. 

Rose shakes her head, her shoulders slumping with a resignation belied by the faint smile curling upon her lips. 

She washes, I dry and pretend like I don’t notice the way she sways in time with the music or her light humming. That gets harder and harder as the pile of dishes dwindles away, and the record flips from a jazzy, brassy number into something a little more mellow and alarmingly danceable. 

My feet find the beat without really thinking about it. I dance my way across the kitchen, my own humming turning into very slightly off-tune singing while I put away the dishes, “Strangers in the night… Two lonely people… We were strangers in the night…”

I set a glass casserole dish on the top pantry shelf, then turn to find Rose watching me with a skeptically raised eyebrow and laughter dancing in her eyes.

“I wasn’t aware my dishes were trained in ballroom.”

“Trained? No. But they’re excellent students.”

She laughs for real this time, the smile as bright and merry. I spend the last few beats of the song dancing my way back to her with a pantomimed partner. “Doo-bee-doo-bee-doo… doo-bee-doo-bee…”

My voice trails off as I reach her, extending one hand to her after throwing my towel onto the counter. 

The record begins to fade out as Rose glances between my hand and my face. “You aren’t serious?”

“What’s it going to hurt?”

“My hands are wet.”

“Do I look like I care?”

The song flips, but I recognize the strains and know the tempo still works. That’s good, because Rose makes up her mind a heartbeat later. She rinses her hands off quickly, shakes them once, and lets me pull her into my arms. 

The kitchen is small but there’s enough room for us to waltz in a simple box through the free space surrounding the central island. Rose is every bit as light on her feet as I thought she might be, and she automatically leans up on her toes to make our height difference easier to accommodate. 

[ ](https://i.imgur.com/tDtkIrb.jpg)

“Maggie taught you,” she says as I lead her into an easy pirouette before pulling her back into my arms.

“She did. Grandpa taught you?”

“Keiko, actually,” Rose says with a chuckle. “These records were hers. Most of them.”

“Most?”

“I have a few in there.”

“Which ones?”

“Ah-ah,” she chastises with a fox-like grin, “That would be telling.”

“Is that really a clue to your little puzzle?”

“No. But a girl has to have some secrets.”

Smirking, I twirl her again. This time, when she returns to me, I tuck her back to my chest, holding her close as we sway through another song change. This close, it’s hard not to notice the shiver that runs through her as I say, “Seems to me like you’re made of secrets, actually.”

“Maybe you just aren’t asking the right questions.”

“Hmm.”

In the living room, the record plucks up a slightly faster tune. We both shift to accommodate the new tempo as I twirl her back out and let her face me again. 

“Alright,” I say, “So say I wanted to know you—not _what_ you are; _who_ you are. Would you give me some real answers, then?”

Rose’s lips press into a thin line, her gaze lowering to my collarbone. For a moment I’m worried I’ve fucked up yet again, but then she shrugs and looks up at me through those thick, long lashes of hers. “We could find out.”

“I think I’d like that.” Surprisingly, I actually mean it. 

“Me, too.” 

As the last song dies, Rose slowly pulls out of my arms. She takes several steps away, coming to rest with her back against the counter and her arms wrapped loosely about her waist. Her eyes never lift from the floor as she says, “James…”

“Don’t,” I whisper.

“Do you know what I am?”

To my own surprise, I’m not angry that she’s still asking this damn question; still playing this stupid game. Just… I’m not sure sure what I’m feeling honestly. No more sure than I am of what she is.

“No,” I say. Rose nods, more to herself than me, and silently returns to the sink to finish cleaning up. 

I head upstairs, as Rose disappears into whatever hole it is she’s been hiding in. The urge to try and find her again—if only to sate my growing curiosity—is strong. Somehow, I resist. 

That night, though, the dreams are more vivid than ever. 

This time, we aren’t upstairs in my bed, but downstairs in the kitchen. The scene plays out between us much as it had in reality, but when it comes time to speak, instead I cup her face in both my hands and kiss her. And she kisses me back. 

I lift her onto the central island as Sinatra croons a counterpoint to our tempo. 

### # 

I wake unsatisfied and wanting. It isn’t a comfortable feeling in any respect, nor does the shower I take actually help to soothe my thoughts. 

Sitting across from Rose at breakfast is nigh unbearable. Her attention is fixated on the papers I dug out of my bag for her, so with any luck she doesn’t notice the way my gaze lingers on the delicate curve of her lips or the shine to her hair. Part of me wants to write it off as her strange magic digging its claws into me all over again, but I remember all too well what that feels like and I have to admit that, no, that it isn’t the case. This is something far simpler and harder to shake: 

Lust. Real, actual lust which I need to bury as swiftly as possible.

It’s a relief when she hands me grandpa’s debit card and a shopping list. I empty the last of the gifted gas into the Charger and follow Rose’s directions back up the road and along the highway into town. 

Nowheresville, WA is hardly more than a strip off the old highway. It features a collection of local-run businesses, single-room government buildings, and the first encroaching tendrils of corporate expansion in the form of a McD’s and a regional chicken chain. I only recognize the latter by having seen a few others while on my way into town, and I have to admit I’m mildly intrigued. 

Actually, now that I’ve seen it, it makes me wonder if Rose might like a night off from cooking. I can’t match her talent for it in most respects, but maybe… 

Unfortunately, I also can’t ask her without going all the way back. If there’s a phone in the house, I didn’t think to ask for the number. Similarly, I have no idea if she keeps a cell phone or not. 

Instead, I make a mental note of the plan and start not with the groceries, but with a trip to the local hardware supply. 

Rose explained the state of the business accounts over breakfast. I’ve never been an operations guy, but I’m smart enough to understand that while the situation isn’t _great_ , it isn’t terrible, either. Not like the situation I’d been in a week ago. Grandpa and Rose lived a fairly conservative lifestyle, money-wise, and at one point had done enough business to establish a sizable rainy-day fund. Said fund had been used extensively these past few years due to Grandpa’s declining health, and was drained further still when the lawyer followed his instructions in setting everything up for my take-over. That was part of what the lawyer had been talking about when she mentioned everything being paid up for a while. 

That said, if we want to _keep_ the place, we’ll need to get new clients in soon. Rose assured me that she’s still receiving requests for bookings. She can get us a full house as soon as I can get the exterior work sorted away. 

Altogether, that proposition is both exhilarating and deeply terrifying. Will all supernaturals be as overwhelmingly hostile as Rose? Maybe… And maybe _not_. Other supernaturals wouldn’t consider the house as their personal territory. It’d be mine. Mine, and Rose’s. 

I frown as I worm my way into a parallel parking spot along the main street. There’s something about that thought which pleases me a little too much; _mine and Rose’s._ I shake it off, reminding myself to worry about the task at hand rather than semantics.

Disturbing thoughts about my housemate aside, the porch and roof are my primary targets. Patio furniture and a barbeque pit are easy enough to handle with a bit of online shopping, after all.

Finding the supplies I need isn’t a real problem. The shop owner is brazenly helpful by my “city” standards, if a little suspicious of me in the usual, small town way. I give him the same explanation I’d given McCoy, though I omit the part about the house being a bed and breakfast.

“You gonna stay, then?” The man wants to know. He surprises me by adding, “We could use more fresh blood around these parts.”

“Haven’t figured that out just yet.” I shrug. “Want to get everything sorted out before I make any decision.”

“Fair ‘nuff.” The man finishes ringing me up then, just before swiping my card, pauses and jerks his head off toward the side of the room. “Actually, you get a look at our paints?”

“Paints?”

He grunts an affirmative and swipes the card. “House paints. We got a pretty good mix, but can order in whatever if you need it. Just a thought. Otto did a pretty nice remodel a few years back on the interior, but I know he left the outside looking like a massacre. Thought maybe you’d want to fix that.”

Now that he pointed it out, that was a pretty good idea. Then again, I knew the place was a supernatural hang-out and this man likely didn’t. Maybe their set _liked_ staying in places which looked like they’d been coated in arterial spray. 

“Not a bad idea.” 

The man nods, handing me my card and receipt. “Our sample cans are pretty cheap, too. If you purchase a full five-gallon later on, the sample price will be knocked off the total.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

He helps me lug the shingles, nails, and other supplies out to my car where they take up most of the backseat. Afterward, I head back inside to stand in front of the paint display, pondering. 

Re-painting would be even more time consuming than everything else I’m doing, but it could be worth it. _If_ I decide to stay. 

If I decide to _sell…_ that might help me get more for the house. Instantly, my stomach twists with guilt; guilt that I resolutely beat back down. Rose and I have managed to get along for one day, more or less. That doesn’t mean I owe her anything. Still, her words whisper at the back of my mind, “it’s better than being hunted. Again.”

Ignoring all that, I select several neutral-toned samples. I’m about to walk away when my eyes catch on the display of reds. One in particular, a perfect match for the house’s original colour, stands out. 

Red had been my grandmother’s choice from what I understood. Maybe it looked terrible in the bloodbath of the here-and-now, but I still have that old picture to remind me of how beautiful and vibrant it had been once upon a time, back when it was maintained. Rose would like that one. 

No sooner do I think this, do I pull the chip out and almost laugh at it’s name. 

“Rose Red.” Of course it is. 

I tuck the chips into my pocket and head down the street to a small grocer.

### #

It’s midday by the time I arrive back at the house. Rose has already been up, and disappeared again as evidenced by the note tacked to the microwave reading, “Heat this.” Inside is a covered plate of cold leftovers. Chuckling to myself, and unable to suppress the smile that lingers on my lips, I set the microwave to warming the food while I unpack the car. 

I eat in between squaring away the groceries. Since Rose handles all the cooking, I hadn’t bothered taking the time to learn my way around the cabinets, yet. At first, the lack of storage space puzzles and frustrates me until, quite by surprise, I discover a small pantry tucked behind what I’d thought was an immovable shelf. This discovery means undoing half of what I’d already done, but soon enough everything is approximately where it’s supposed to be. I even manage to cram what few frozen items Rose requested into the small freezer found in the pantry, overtop a mound of what appears to be hunted meat and wild-caught fish. 

The notion of Grandpa as a hunter is a strange one. Sure, he went camping, but I’d never known him to bring fishing poles or rifles. If anything, he’d been a nature-hike kind of guy.

What the hell am I saying? This couldn’t possibly be his. It’s all too fresh. If he’d been sick as long as Rose said, anything he’d caught should have spoiled by now, freezer or no. 

So that means… Rose hunts? 

Somehow, the idea surprises me. Despite her temper and fierce protectiveness, she doesn’t strike me as the sort that wanders through the woods looking for prey. Certainly not with a rifle, anyway. 

Then again… What do I really know about her? Nothing. Not even her species.

Should I do it? Should I give in to Rose and play along with her little information hunt? It _would_ be nice to know. A part of me _wants_ to know. And yet… 

As my thoughts begin to circle, I return to the front porch and lean against one of the aging columns. The various projects lined up are already nibbling at the back of my mind. 

The middle of the porch is rotted and needs to be replaced, but I’ll need to take Grandpa’s old pickup to collect the boards I ordered. Before I can do _that_ , the truck needs an oil change. I did, however, get the shingles for the roof, and there’s a ladder in the shed that will get me up there. Obviously, that’s the best starting point. I _should_ get to work.

I don’t move. Instead, I watch the waves lapping at the distant shore, just down the short incline and past the pile of debris from the backyard. 

The past three days haven’t been comfortable or easy, but they have been… peaceful, for the most part. There’s a serenity to being out here, relatively alone in the middle of the woods. It’s a feeling I’d heard about all my life but I genuinely didn’t believe was real. You know how people are. They always talk about how peaceful the country is, and generally don’t account for the bugs or the struggling infrastructure or the lack of cable. Spoiled city boy that I am, I enjoy the little luxuries of city life; the sidewalks, and choice of shops, and bumming off cafe wi-fi connections. But this… the idea that I could get used to it—might even like it—is as much of a surprise to me as it would be to anyone who knows me. 

McCoy’s offer and its temptations are still there, though. Even if I don’t sell to him, I know I could find a buyer, and then I really could move up to Portland or Seattle. There are plenty of studios in both. I could find another job in a couple months, easy, and start rebuilding my life where it left off. 

But what about Rose? 

Splitting the money with her would have to be step one, no matter the selfish twinge that hates the idea. I may not have any legal obligation to include her, but morally— _morally_ , there isn’t any question. This place is far more hers than it is mine. 

Which is another reason I shouldn’t sell it all. I should stay. Or let her manage it and just… what? Fuck off to Seattle? Penniless? Alone?

I start to reject the idea, but then… it wouldn’t necessarily have to be penniless, would it? Not if the B&B is doing well. 

That isn’t a completely terrible idea. If I could get an internet connection here, or in town, I could job hunt remotely while helping her get things back up and running. Then, surely, she wouldn’t be able to complain if I used some of the money Grandpa had left to move myself to the city after finding a position.

No, it really isn’t a bad idea. Certainly, it’s better than the notion of selling the house out from underneath someone who clearly has an attachment to it. Besides, I’d promised to fix the place for Grandpa, and I highly doubt “sell it to the highest bidder” was the sort of fix he had in mind. 

And _yet…_

I wet my lips, tasting sea-salt despite having gone nowhere near the beach. 

Tonight marks the end of Rose’s ultimatum. 

Last night made it clear she hasn’t given up on this game of hers, and just as clear that I have no idea what failing it will mean for this tenuous relationship we’ve built over the past couple days. Why she can’t just accept that I won’t play along, I don’t understand. It isn’t like I haven’t made that abundantly clear. So tonight, when I have no answer for her, she’ll—

She’ll do what? Attack me again?

Images from my dreams immediately come to bear again, hot and heavy as if they’d really happened. I groan, and pass a hand over my face. 

Obviously that isn’t something I want, no matter what my libido is doing. I don’t want to make an enemy of her, either, just as I’d rather not have her try and throw me out on the street. Maybe that makes me kind of entitled—this was never _my_ home—but it does _legally_ belong to me. And I genuinely don’t have anywhere else to go. 

Does Rose know that, though?

The thought is sudden as a lightning strike, and just as disarming. 

She’d seen the evidence of my unplanned road trip across America, sure, but had I ever specifically told her about my circumstances? 

No. I haven’t. And the idea of doing so isn’t exactly pleasant. It’s my private business. She doesn’t have a _right_ to know.

But Rose had told me about her own situation—at least enough that I’m able to understand the gist of where she’s coming from. 

Maybe, rather than going along with her games, it’s time I evened the playing field on my own terms.


	7. Chapter 7

Toward sunset, Rose appears at the front step with a curious scowl on her lips and the note I’d left her dangling from one finger, held by the strip of tape I’d used to secure it to the basement door. I’m still working, so caught up in what I’m doing that it takes a few minutes for me to notice the eyes on the back of my head and look up. 

“Oh, hey! You’re up!”

“What are you doing?”

“Getting dinner ready.”

“Dinner,” she says, nonplussed. Even from this distance I can see how her gaze darts across the strip of beach I’ve transformed into something respectably inviting. 

There wasn’t much to be done about the smaller rocks littering the shoreline, but the larger ones I rolled into a hastily dug pit a short walk down from the driveway. I fit them together as best I could, using a mud-based mortar to piece together a two-rock-tall rim around the edge. It isn’t very elegant, as DIY fire pits go, but it works. After that, a fair amount of time had been spent pulling apart my debris pile from the backyard and building a fire the way grandpa himself had taught me years and years ago. 

YouTube supplied the idea of using some of those same old saplings and the rusted-out grill from the old barbeque to make a cooking apparatus over the fire itself. I can’t cook on it directly for righteous fear of tetanus, but that’s what aluminum foil is for. 

Rose approaches in cat-like silence, taking in the beach towels I’d laid out, the traveling icebox I’d dug out of a storage closet, and the foil-wrapped fish roasting over the open flames.

“I found the salmon in the freezer when I was putting groceries away this morning. Hope that’s not a problem?”

“No,” she says so hesitantly I think it might be, but when I offer her a cold beer she takes it. “I’m just not sure what to say.”

“Most people go with ‘thank you.’”

She rolls the beer in her hands, condensation coating her palms, and stares at me from the corner of her eye. “Why?”

“Humans consider it polite.”

She snickers, then heaves a resolute sigh. “I meant, why this? I thought you liked my cooking?”

“I do. Just figured maybe you’d like a break. I was gonna get chicken, but in the end I figured maybe this was a bit… better. Admittedly, I’m not as good as you, so don’t go expecting Michelin or anything.”

“What about you?” She seems to catch my confusion and adds, “Don’t you need a break?”

“I’ve had  _ plenty  _ of those recently, trust me.” Picking up a nearby stick, I use it to stoke the fire a little more, then flip the foil packages over with a pair of tongs. 

While I’m doing this, Rose sinks down onto one of the beach towels and cracks open her beer. Her flowy white blouse billows in a sudden gust of breeze, making her look not a little picturesque in the pink and gold sunset light.

Into the silence, Rose eventually asks, “Does that have anything to do with how you got here so quickly?”

“How do you mean?”

“Most people can’t just pick up their life and drive across the country at a drop of the hat. Not without a fixed plan for returning, and…”

And I’m obviously not in a hurry.

“You aren’t wrong,” I say, glad that she’s taking the bait without rubbing my nose in my admission of poverty from the night before. It’ll make this somewhat less awkward. Maybe. I hope. “What did grandpa tell you about me, anyway? If anything.”

Rose sips her beer, eyes fixed upon the horizon as she thinks this over. 

“You’re an artist,” she says, “Something about video games? He showed me one that you helped make, once, though neither of us was really certain what you did on it.”

“You know what video—” I cut myself off with a wince, realizing how badly the question I’d been going to ask could be taken. Rose just laughs. 

“I know what video games are, yes. I have a cellphone. I text, even. I’m not terribly into playing the games myself, but I’m aware of their existence. Does that surprise you so much?”

“Not… entirely. You are the one who brought up pop-culture the night we met.”

“But it still surprises you a little.”

I shrug. “You did claim to be older than my grandparents, once.”

“I suppose that makes sense. Older humans aren’t as adaptable, typically,” muses Rose. She shakes her head and takes another sip of her beer. “But yes. He said you were an artist, and making a name for yourself on the east coast. Other than a few anecdotes from your childhood, that’s about it.”

My cheeks heat in a way that has nothing to do with the fire in front of me. Of course he’d told her stories about me as a kid; that’s what grandparents  _ do _ . Still, her bringing it up is kind of… weird. No matter that I understand that she isn’t human, and that she obviously doesn’t age like one, Rose still  _ looks  _ like she ought to be my age. Not someone who was around when my own mother was a child here. The fact that I brought it up first doesn’t matter to the twisting in my gut.

“He may have exaggerated a bit.”

“Grandparents do.”

“By ‘a bit’, I kind of meant ‘a  _ lot _ .’”

That finally draws her attention away from the distant horizon. As she looks toward me, her eyes catch the firelight and once again glow a bright, spectral green; like a predator’s. Missing my hesitation, Rose lifts both eyebrows at me in silent invitation to continue speaking. It takes several moments to follow through. 

“Gaming is a weird industry, especially for a technical artist like me. I mostly did concept paintings, environment design and the like. My part in planning a game—well, that all doesn’t matter, much. The point is, the industry is mostly contract work and a lot of shifting from one place to another.” With that preface, I launch into the condensed version of what had been going on in my life, glossing over my car salesmanship, which had been prompted by wanting to stay in Jersey for Marnie, in favour of getting to the job I’d thought would seal my future. 

“Then about four months ago, right before the scheduled launch of our newest—and  _ first— _ game, the boss walks in one morning and tells everybody how glad he was to work with us this one ‘last’ time before the studio sunk.”

“Hadn’t it just opened?”

“Yeah,” I drawl, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice. “Apparently seventy-percent of the startup budget went to a private jet so he could ‘meet publishers on their own terms’ or some horseshit like that. Of course, the flight crew had a lot of stories about weekend getaways and golfing trips. The point was, everyone who’d joined up was out of work. Most of the other guys found something else pretty quick, but I was—I’d have had to move again.”

“You liked New Jersey that much?”

“Well, no. Not really. There was just this—” My voice cracks unexpectedly. I drain my beer to cover it, then spend another minute checking on our dinner before I settle back on the sand. By this point, the sunlight is limited to brilliant tendrils of orange and pink at the furthest point of the horizon while darkness settles across the beach. The moon is rising behind us, still nestled within the dark tree boughs, and echoed by the ghosts of stars peeking through the blue.

When I think I can manage to talk about her sensibly, though I’m not entirely certain why I’m talking about her at all when I’d initially hoped to avoid the subject, I manage to say, “I didn’t really care about the city one way or the other. But I had a—that is, there was a—”

“You were seeing someone.”

“Yeah.”

After a few minutes, Rose says in a way that could be a question but probably isn’t, “It ended badly?”

“Yeah.” The beer can crunches in my hand, and I relax my grip so much I nearly drop it. Rose scoffs slightly at my fumble, but the smile she gives me is sympathetic. 

I set the beer down beside me and lean back on both hands. “She wasn’t looking for a house husband. Not that I ever intended to be one, or was particularly good at it. But the longer my job searching went on, the more strained we became. I guess I didn’t realize  _ how  _ strained until her other boyfriend showed up.” 

Rose winces. 

“I guess I can’t blame her. I was getting frustrated and depressed with everything, and… after a lot of thinking about it, maybe we were on the rocks for a while before that happened. I dunno.”

“You don’t have to justify her actions, you realize.”

“Yeah, probably not. But I don’t want to be one of those guys who can’t admit their own mistakes, either.”

Rose hums a soft note that could be anything from agreement to disagreement to dismissal; it’s difficult to tell with her. Then she says, softly, “Was it the staying at home you hated? Taking care of the house?”

Stretching my legs out in front of me, I dig my toes as best I can into the hard, cold sand and consider that question. It’s obvious why she’s asking; my duties here—grandpa’s old duties—are the essence of what a “house husband” would be doing, just without the ring attached. I’ve thought this over enough that it doesn’t take long to reach an answer, but possibly longer than she likes. 

“No. It’s not art, and I do need to make art, but mostly I just wanted to feel appreciated. I wanted to feel like I was contributing something of value to the world. Well, ‘to  _ someone else’  _ is more apt, maybe. I don’t have ambitions toward public office or anything. But for those first few weeks I was as content with it as I could be, with bills to pay and a job search ongoing.”

“But?”

“But Marnie wasn’t happy with it, and never really appreciated the fact that the dishes and laundry were done, or that there was dinner or the table every night, or that I’d learned how to clean the bathroom grout with a toothbrush. None of it. She was more concerned about the bills—which I get. Bills are damned important, I just—it was never  _ enough _ , you know? The fact that I was trying my hardest wasn’t enough.”

Before Rose can weigh in on the enormous emotional anvil I’d just dropped on the both of us, I clear my throat and return to her original question. “The point is, I don’t mind the  _ work _ . Never did.”

When I dare a glance in her direction, Rose is nodding vaguely, her gaze fixated on the distant outline of sea foam lapping at the shore. In the silence, I turn the foil packeted fish over so they don’t burn. 

Then, so slowly that it doesn’t feel nearly as abrupt as it is, Rose stands and walks back into the house. 

“Rose?”

Silence.

It takes a few minutes for the hurt and anger to settle in. 

Is this her way of telling me that my efforts, here, aren’t appreciated either? 

Tempted as I am to storm in after her, demanding to know why she hadn’t at least bothered to tell me what was up, I stay where I am, letting the ocean breeze cool me degree by dropping degree. After all, only a lunatic would go pelting after some acerbic woman they barely know. I’m not a stalker, and I’m certainly not her boyfriend, or anyone else who might deserve an answer for this insult. 

Just as I’ve worked my way back around to self pity, the front door squeaks open and closed again behind me—another item for my ‘honey do’ list. 

Rose pads up, less silently than before, and plunks an old traveling boombox down on the sand next to her beach towel. My thoughts still instantly, awash with shame and surprise. 

Then she presses the ‘play’ button on the CD player. The opening notes of a familiar duet twinkle into the night. 

Over Nancy and Frank’s rendition of “Something Stupid,” Rose offers me her hand. I take it, letting her pull me up and lead me a few paces from the fire before I tug her into my arms. 

“I thought you said the Sinatra wasn’t yours,” I say quietly into her ear. 

“Mmm,  _ no _ . I said I wouldn’t  _ tell  _ you which were mine,” is her enigmatic response. It’s so on point for her that I can’t help but laugh. 

We dance through two more songs before the fish is ready. The entire time is spent with pleasant, easy silence between us. The longer it goes on, the more I realize that I could do this. I could live like this the rest of my life, and I wouldn’t regret a minute of it. 

Over dinner, the conversation turns to more pleasant topics. The house; repairs; a paint job.

“Do you really think it needs it?” she asks, casting a glance back at the house. 

“You don’t like change much, do you?”

“I can’t say I’m a fan,” Rose agrees with the softest sigh. “I used to be, but…”

But too much has changed recently, I guess. For once, I’m also smart enough not to say it aloud. Instead, I offer her a slim smile and nudge her elbow with mine. “Then let me take care of it. I promise you won’t regret my choice. Scout’s honor.”

“Were you actually a scout?”

“Nope.

Rose eyes me like she isn’t sure, but the twitch at the corner of her mouth makes me think she’s coming around as she nods. 

Finally, long after we’ve both dissolved again into comfortable silence watching the waves by the light of the moonlight as our fire slowly banks itself, Rose finally asks the question I’d been waiting for: “James? Do you know what I am?”

“You’re Rose. That’s all I need to know.”

“It really isn’t,” she sighs in a tone so wistful and sad I almost regret my decision not to play along. Then her fingers gently slip over mine, warm against the cool night air. With bated breath, I wait for something more than that; for a return of the aggressive attraction I’d felt that first night, or for the piercing of fangs or claws. With no idea what she is, I can’t imagine exactly what form her attack might take. 

In the end, though, it is only her shoulder which comes to rest against mine before she says, ever so quietly, “Three more days. I can give you three more days.”

I want to argue. I want to ask her why she’s bothering when I’m not going to play. 

Instead, I lean more firmly into her and slide my fingers between and over hers, and say nothing at all. 


	8. Chapter 8

It takes all three of those days to fix the roof, and, as it turned out, repair a bit of water damage a leak had caused to the attic. The days were hot, somewhat tedious, and possibly the most fulfilling of my life. 

I would rise to the smell of a delicious breakfast, eat with Rose while we shared the morning paper, then head outside to work at a pace of my own choosing. Or at least, the pace at which I could watch YouTube tutorials. 

I asked Rose not to interrupt her sleep over my lunch, so she took to preparing me a sandwich before she turned in. In the interest of not offending her, I accepted this. (Besides, it’s kind of great not having to worry about it. Can I admit that?)

We ate dinner together in the evenings, and cleaned the kitchen to our nightly serenade of music. It wasn’t always Sinatra, but it was always danceable. I became used to the feeling of having her hands in mine; her body swaying against mine to the beat of the old record player.

Sometimes she’d disappear after that, or we’d stay up watching a movie, but before we parted it was always followed by her same, quiet question, and my same simple answer. 

On the third day, she added, “I can give you three more days.”

And we began again.

Three more days to fix the porch. Six shared meals. Three nights of dancing in the kitchen, and off-key singing, and learning that we both enjoy ridiculous action flicks with no plot to speak of. 

I showed her one of the games I’d helped to make, and set her up with my work laptop. She drew the curtains and didn’t sleep a wink; not until she’d reached the end. The next morning she had capital-letter  _ Opinions _ , and I couldn’t stop smiling while she picked apart the writing but praised the background art.

###  #

Rose’s cheek is warm against my shoulder, and her hair soft where it cascades over my chest. Without turning her eyes away from the obnoxiously designed ending credits of  _ The Speedy and The Wrathful, Twenty-Eight _ , she asks, “James, do you know what I am?”

I take a sip of my beer, set it aside, and say, “Call me crazy, but I’m pretty sure you’re a flower.”

Her sigh puffs against my skin as she sits slowly up. “... Three more days.”

Before Rose can move any further away, I gently claim her hand in mind, pulling her to a halt. Her eyes gleam like a cat’s in the dim light, but I don’t flinch. “The first booking will be here two days from now.”

“They will. So?”

“So…” Despite my better judgement, I catch myself grazing my thumb over her knuckles and I don’t stop. “We’ll have a full house, and other things to concentrate on. We might get distracted from our guests if we have this deadline hanging over us, huh?”

“Then give me a real answer.”

“I can’t do that.”

Those pretty pink lips of hers twist in a scowl. “Not ‘can’t’. Won’t.”

“It can be both.” 

“Only because you haven’t even tried,” she accuses. Her fingers tense around mine, but she stops shy of pulling away.

I lean in, keeping her hand close to me as I look up into those holographically glowing eyes. “Your favorite song of the last century is  _ Jeepers Creepers _ . Your favorite of  _ this _ century, so far, is  _ Death of a Bachelor _ . You cried over  _ Speed _ —an action movie, of all things—but didn’t shed a tear over  _ Titanic _ . You have a visceral, gut reaction to anything smelling remotely of pickles, and make the best omelettes on the planet. You won’t drink any coffee except—”

Now she pulls away. I let her go, reluctantly. “What is any of that supposed to mean?”

“That I’m learning,” I say, with a simple shrug.

“That’s just stuff about me.”

“Yeah. It is.”

Her expression performs a strange, subtle dance of emotion before settling with her brows furrowed. “I asked  _ what  _ I am, not who I am.”

“You did. I just don’t consider those things mutually exclusive. Besides, I’m way more interested in the latter these days.”

“James,” sighs Rose. 

When she says nothing else for a long minute, I reach for her hand again and gently massage her fingers with the pad of my thumb. “Three months.”

“What?”

“You can extend it by three days, so why not give me three months? Enough time to get us through the summer tourism.”

She bites her lower lip in thought; her glowing eyes narrowing at me as she thinks, and then, reluctantly, nods. 

“Three months,” she agrees. “But no more extensions past that.”

“Alright,” I say, and let her go. 

She drifts slowly from me, turning at the stairwell to stare at me for a very long time before she disappears into the basement and beyond to the no-where realm I’ve yet to find.

When she’s finally gone, I lean back into the couch and stare at the ceiling. “What are you doing, James?”

The house, of course, has no answers. 

God, I’m a jackass. 


	9. Chapter 9

Two days later our first guests arrive. 

I stand awkwardly beside Rose in the front room as we welcome them in, trying not to think about the fact that the house still isn’t painted and must look terrible in the glowing sunset light.

At least the backyard looked marginally better. I’d spent the past two days arranging the new patio furniture Rose had ordered online, testing the new grill, and erecting a pavilion that would, hopefully, add some longevity to both. If nothing else, it gave me a place to string up some fairy lights. 

All of that seems pointless, though, in the face of these strangers. 

Days earlier, Rose had told me: “I have a pair of couples who want to book the place for a couple weeks.”

“Each?”

“Together. One of them, the Kinos, are long-term clients of ours, and they wanted to introduce some friends of theirs.”

I took a moment to ponder that as I sipped the tea she’d brewed to accompany our dinner that night. “Introduce, huh? Like, in the old-fashioned Jane Austin way?”

“In a way, yes. We’ve always relied on word of mouth for advertisement, and prefer clients that are recommended to us by known persons.”

“Suppose that makes sense.”

She nodded, then began a speech of ‘thou shalt nots’ in regards to our guests. Don’t make promises, don’t accept offers—but don’t be rude about refusals!, do not ask what they are, and, in the case of the new pair, don’t insult their  _ Family _ , which she said as though it had a capital letter. Whatever that was supposed to mean. I couldn’t see how it would even come up.

Still, those vague warnings hadn’t quite prepared me for what arrived. The guests were four…

Completely normal people. 

The Kinos are a couple composed largely of earth tones. They both sport glorious natural tans, and luxurious brown hair. But where the man’s eyes are blue, his wife’s eyes are a striking green. At least, I assume they’re husband and wife. I sincerely hoped they’re husband and wife, or else, based purely on the amount of smooching already witnessed, these next two weeks will be awkward beyond belief. 

The other couple are less well matched, physically speaking. They’re both women (which actually makes them  _ more _ matched, technically; semantics) but where one is short with a blue-dyed bob and glasses, the other is tall and willowy with bleached hair gathered into a wavy ponytail. The Kinos introduce them as the Mizunos. 

I’m starting to sense a theme, here.

“We have your rooms ready upstairs, and we thought we’d begin your stay with a barbeque out on our new patio,” Rose is saying as she leads the group toward the bedrooms. The others follow, chatting excitedly about how glad they are to be back, or conversely, how glad they are to finally see the place they’ve heard so much about. 

Taking that as my cue, I head out to the backyard to start the grill. Have to open on a high note, right?

About an hour later, both groups and Rose have joined me in the yard; the chicken skewers I’d made are mostly gone, alongside the lemonade and banana pudding that Rose brought out from the house. Rose’s boom-box is serenading us with something a bit more modern than either of us has been inclined toward of late, and everyone is relaxing in the post-meal coziness of the moment.

Nobuyuki Kino stretches out in one of the new wicker lawn chairs and lolls his head toward me with a contented smile. 

“I missed this,” he says, seemingly to no one in particular. Then again, given that the women are having a conversation in rapid-fire Japanese, it’s likely he’s talking to me. 

“You two came here a lot, then?”

“Every summer for, mm, two… three decades? Time kind of mushes together.”

I keep my voice steadily neutral as I mutter, “I’ll say.” None of our guests looks to be over thirty themselves, implying their longevity may be as prolonged as Rose’s. If I stayed, would I be surrounded by immortals the rest of my life? Would I die an old, withered man looking at Rose, still preserved in her late twenties?

Would I care?

“So. Have you worked here long?”

I blink at Nobuyuki, realizing only belatedly that I’d completely checked out of the conversation. I shake my head free of cobwebs and shrug a shoulder. “Not really. I drove out after Grandpa passed to handle his affairs, and things kind of… snowballed.”

“Ah.” A look of sympathy plays across the man’s features. He nods, glancing at Rose. Though her gaze is fixed upon the women she’s been speaking with, her smile has disappeared. She might be talking but she can still hear us. 

Quietly, Nobuyuki adds: “I’d wondered, but I hadn’t wanted to ask.”

“It was peaceful,” I say, because it sounds like something you’re supposed to say in these situations. I really hope it isn’t a lie.

“The most any of us can ask for.”

My brain skids to a halt as the implications of that statement hit me, heavy as a freight train. Aren’t these creatures immortal? Isn’t Rose? 

Frowning, I turn on him with questions on my tongue.

Questions that die when Rose intercedes, “James, would you mind refilling the lemonade?” From the tone of her voice, she knows what I’d been about to ask and disapproves wholeheartedly. Likely, it’s too close to the prohibited “what are you” question. 

“Not at all, oh Queen of the Pacific Northwest.” I bow to her, noting a truly magnificent roll of her eyes, then stand and take the nearly empty pitcher inside. 

The guests are gone when I return. They don’t return until breakfast, all tired and covered in twigs and dirt, and joyous as school children with an entire day to fuck around. They bear a dead deer between the four of them, which Rose cleans and dresses before she retires. I stay long enough to note the way the animal’s throat has been ripped open, and the claw marks covering its sides, and decide that maybe  _ not _ asking questions is the better part of valour. 

###  #

Despite my mounting unease, the next two weeks pass in a blur. I moved to Grandpa’s room upstairs, to better make room for our guests. Though I still feel strange about sleeping in his room, his bed, it’s better than being sandwiched between two couples and thin walls. Still, I lie awake every night listening to strange, animalistic chittering and howls from below and wonder just what it is I’m missing.

We cook the venison on a newly reinforced spit on the beach, accompanied by music and dancing. I don’t miss the way our guests watch me twirl Rose in my arms, but they don’t say anything. And I don’t ask, either. No questions, no matter their occasionally leading turns of phrase, or the odd lingering stare. 

The Kinos are nocturnal, I learn, but the Mizunos are diurnal. They invite me along on mid-morning hikes in the woods, and though I’m wary I go along with it anyway. They’re fun, and by the time we return to the house we’re all laughing like old friends.

Outside of those excursions, though, I don’t have much to do. Though I’d like to get new paint on the house, I still haven’t decided on a colour. Besides, it doesn’t seem like the sort of job one does while they have guests. So instead, I focus on the old shed in the yard. 

I’d kept my distance from the shed since it fell apart on me. I wasn’t sure how often Rose could ‘remind it’ what it was supposed to be, and didn’t want to risk it collapsing on my head. But the more that I peer and prod at it, the more resigned I am to the obvious: it needs to come down entirely. There’s just no saving it at this point. 

It takes a day to carefully clean the shed out without sending it to splinters all around me. Even then, most of the contents are exactly what I expected: absolute junk. There’s paint that’s gone wormy and gross, empty motor oil cans, brick-solid paint brushes, and rusted out tools. Most of that gets tossed to the side in a pile I’ve mentally labeled ‘dumpster fire.’ The rest, I haul into the house and down to the disused basement. 

Every time I go down there, I wonder if that’s the time I’ll encounter Rose. Never happens, though occasionally I’ve felt the weight of eyes upon the back of my neck and a whisper of fingers across my arm. 

By the end of the first week, I’ve torn the shed down and reduced its parts to fuel for our bonfires. In its place is an ugly patch of dirt that I apologize for, but our guests take in stride. 

Building a new shed is a project I hadn’t budgeted for, but with a few more guests lined up after this pair we have enough that, by the end of the second week, I have a platform and frame in place for the shed’s replacement. It even has a blue tarp roof to keep rain off the lawnmower, now that I’ve moved it back inside. 

Their last night, I stand outside with Nobuyuki, who’s inspecting my work while the women laugh and chatter inside the house; audible thanks to the open windows, though they’re far enough away that the words are indistinct.

“Solid foundation,” he’s saying, eyeing one of the joints. “You’ve never put one of these together before?”

“Nope,” I admit, daring to lean against the doorframe. It doesn’t budge, so, maybe, I’ve done a decent job. “It’s all stubbornness and YouTube.”

Nobuyuki chuckles quietly. “Not surprising, though. Your grandpa was always working on something or other. Seems like you didn’t fall far from his tree. Between that and… well. You know.”

“Not for lack of—” I register what he’s said a second too late, and flub my words as I struggle to reverse gears. “What?”

The way he angles his head back toward the house— _ Rose’s _ home—fills my head with some very uncomfortable thoughts. For once, those thoughts aren’t about me and Rose. They’re about… 

Nobuyuki’s eyes twinkle with mischief as he breaks into a broad, shit-eating grin and laughs. “Not like that, man. Though, sure, I thought it a few times after your grandma—well. I was wrong. They weren’t like that. I meant, y’know, how decent you are about, ah,  _ us _ . You are human, right?”

I dial down the urge to snap at him. Clearing my throat, I shrug uncomfortably, and nod. I suppose they’re allowed to ask that kind of question. Can’t say I blame them.

“And you don’t have a problem living with her?”

“Should I?”

“No,” Nobuyuki drawls. “So long as you understand what it means for her.”

“What ‘ _ what’ _ means for her?”

“Y’know.” Nobuyuki waits a moment, seeming to revel in the obviousness that is my not knowing. Then he relents, his expression turning marginally serious. “Living more-or-less alone with a—admittedly this is a guess—but a young  _ bachelor  _ of marriageable age? There’s some implications there, for her kind. Nobody’s as strict to the old ideals as they once were, but there are certain things that bind stronger than the laws of men.”

“Implications like what?” A tremor of understanding runs down my spine. I’m not stupid. I can guess. It’s there in the way he emphasized ‘bachelor’, and the way Rose has behaved towards me over and over again these past few weeks. 

But I want to hear it put plain.

“Mm. I  _ could  _ tell you…” Nobuyuki drawls, another cheshire grin drawing across his face. “But where’s the fun in that? Besides, if she hasn’t mentioned it herself, then it isn’t my place. I doubt I’ll be welcome here again if I spill, and Makoto would be upset if I got us banned.”

Before I can protest his gaze cuts toward the house. I follow it, and I’m not surprised to find Rose in the window, wearing her trademark scowl. For once it isn’t directed at me. That’s something.

Nobuyuki nods once to her, and then to me. “I should probably help the girls with the car,” he says. “We want to leave at sunset, tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Gimme a sec and I’ll—”

“No need. I’ve got this.”

He leaves me standing there, a little dumbstruck, watching Rose where she remains on the porch. She watches me. I watch her.

By mutual, unspoken agreement we won’t speak of this for the next two and a half months.


	10. Chapter 10

The night after our first party leaves, two more sets arrive. Couples again, but unconnected and not Japanese. So much for the theme. Still, their faint ukrainian accents give me something to ponder over in regards to what they might ‘really’ be, beyond human. Not that I’m given much else to work with. Unlike the first set, these aren’t much for hanging around us or the house. We see them at meals—which are part of the whole B&B package. Neither seem interested in a cookout when we offer, so Rose does her own thing when she’s not playing chef, and I spend my nights catching up on my sleep. That’s fine. It allows me time to work on the shed and think.

Originally, I hadn’t wanted to give in to Rose’s demand that I research her species on my own because it felt like a power trip for her. A way to exert her control over the situation, and over me. Then, after I got to know her, I didn’t want to  _ have _ to research it. That felt too much like an invasion. I didn’t want to know details if she didn’t want to tell me those details herself.

I guess I thought I was taking the high road, acting like her species didn’t matter. Like it wasn’t—isn’t—a factor in this. 

But what if it is? Nobuyuki’s insinuations nibble at the back of my mind. What was Rose really afraid of here? The more I thought about it, the less it felt like she was really afraid of  _ me _ . Maybe she had been at first, but over these past few weeks I thought I’d given her plenty of reason to have some faith. I haven’t even considered McCoy’s offer in weeks, now. 

Yet, she persists in playing this game.  _ Why _ ?

One night, after the second set has left and the house is briefly our own again, we light a fire on the beach and put Sinatra on. When I take her into my arms it’s like coming home. 

“Rose?” 

She hums in response. Her hand is in mine, my other hand at her back, and I can feel her hum against my shoulder, where her face is pressed. In turn, I press my nose into her hair, inhaling the floral scent of her until I work up the nerve to continue. “Do you want me to leave?”

I expect her to tense up. To defer and protest, and work her way around giving me an answer. Like always. 

“No,” she says, faintly but there, and I find I can breathe again. 

Then she adds: “But I can’t let you stay. Not unless you give me an answer.”

“Why?”

She shakes her head, mute again, and I wonder how much of her silence is her own choice, and how much of it is this thing she’s put between us. In the end, I don’t know. I won’t know. I  _ can’t _ . Not until I’ve done what’s been asked of me. 

It still rankles a little. More and more, however, I’m starting not to care. Not if giving in means that I can stay. 

The question is, do I really  _ want  _ to?

###  #

That night, I dream of her again.

I’m lying in bed, attic beams illuminated by pale moonlight, when the door to the room creaks open. As always in these dreams, I cannot move except to breathe and blink as the gentle padding of her footsteps drifts nearer. The bed shifts as her weight settles upon it.

But instead of climbing onto me as usual, her weight settles against my side, her cheek pressed against my chest, and I find that I’m not disappointed at all. She winds her arms around me and suddenly I can move again. I wrap my arm around her in turn, and we hold each other until sleep claims us both.

In the morning she’s gone, but my side is warm and the room smells of flowers. Her flowers. 

Maybe I’m just screwed up. Maybe I ought to be pissed that she was in here. That she came to me like this. Maybe I ought to be wondering how many of those dreams I’ve had these past few weeks  _ were _ dreams, and how many were real.

But honestly? I just wish she’d been there when I woke up. 

And that’s my answer, isn’t it? That’s my answer to all of this. 

I don’t want to sell the house. I don’t want to move up to Seattle on some pipe dream of actually managing to get a foothold in an industry that clearly doesn’t want me. 

I want  _ this _ . I want  _ her _ , which is somewhat more alarming than the rest of it. I want my dreams to be real, and this life to be ours. 

Sighing, I pull out my phone. 

That day, I’m late for breakfast. 

I’m late, because I understand, now, why Rose didn’t want me staying here. Why she keeps setting time limits. What my staying will cost us both, in the end.

But it’s worth it, isn’t it? I’m happier here than I’ve been in… as long as I can remember, really. I feel like I belong. Like I’m  _ wanted _ , weirdly enough given how this all started. I feel like there’s a space for me, that’s just waiting for me to claim it.

I just really hope that I’m not wrong.

###  #

Several more weeks of customers traipse slowly by as the summer days begin to shorten, and the shadows lengthen, and the weather grows cool. Soon, it’ll be fall and we’ll have a few weeks’ break until our next booking.

Progress on the shed had been slow going since I wasn’t able to do anything loud while our (often nocturnal) guests are sleeping, but the finished product is surprisingly sturdy for a man who’d never done anything like this before in his life. 

All it needs now is paint. Speaking of paint, there’s one more thing I need to do before Rose and I are left alone this weekend, and I give her my final answer. 

“Now, I’m not inclined to comment on a customer’s choice of paint,” says Maurice in the tone of a man who  _ absolutely  _ comments on every customer’s choice of paint. The middle-aged owner of the hardware store is a chatty man, and more of a gossip than the old woman who ran the bakery across the street. He squints at me. “You  _ sure _ about this?”

“Absolutely.” When he still looks skeptical, I add, “It was my grandmother’s choice, back in the day. Figured it would be nice to keep it that way. In her honor.”

This is enough to mollify him, of course. I knew it would be. 

A short while later, he’s helping me load three five-gallon containers of paint into the bed of grandpa’s old pickup. 

“Awful lot of paint there,” says a faintly familiar voice. 

I turn to find the gas station attendant—what was his name again? McCoy?—standing on the sidewalk, watching us. 

“Got a house to paint.”

“You’re staying, then?”

“Yeah. I think I am.”

“Good for you, then. Hope you take care of  _ it _ ,” he says, the strangest edge to his voice at the word ‘it.’ I tip my head slightly to one side, looking at the old man again. Rose had been so upset when she’d heard I’d spoken with him, but I had never figured out why. It hadn’t come up again. 

Of course, she never knew I’d been tempted to sell him the property out from under her. Hopefully, she never would.

“I intend to,” I say, and the old man smirks. He watches Maurice head back into the store then, when we’re alone, leans in conspiratorially.

“A’Course you do. Just be careful it don’t bite you for trying,” he says, winking an eye that very briefly shines with a holographic flair. Before I can recover, he nods to me and saunters off back down the street. As he goes, I catch the faintest hint of a scaley, shedding patch of skin on his neck that he scratches as he walks.

Frowning, I climb into the pickup and drive off before the man turns around. Better to get away fast, I think, and reconsider ever using that gas station of his again. While he didn’t seem terribly upset by losing out on the land, I finally understand what Rose had tried to tell me weeks ago: that man is a snake. Literally. And there’s no telling what he might do if I wander back into his den.

How many of our neighbors aren’t human? Is that another reason why Rose wanted me to learn to research things?

It seems just like her. Never telling me anything directly. Making everything a game. But it’s not like she can help that. It’s only in her nature, after all.


	11. Chapter 11

Painting the house was more of a priority than the shed; not because it made any logical sense, but because I wanted to make a point. A point that needed to be made tonight,  _ today _ , when Rose would inevitably ask me again. When I would give her an answer. When I needed her to understand I wasn’t just trying to take advantage of her.

It would have been so easy to take advantage of her, if I were a worse person. It really wasn’t any wonder she’d reacted so badly to finding me in her house.

The sun is streaming rose-gold across the western sky when the front door opens and Rose steps outside. She notices the empty paint cans first, then turns and walks backward to look up at the house. 

I’ve only managed a first coat, but it still looks better than it had before; the red vibrant and cheery in the sunset light. Not to mention  _ even _ , without any of the worn away or chipping spots that marred the old paint job.

“You hated the red,” she says as I descend the ladder.

“I hated  _ that _ red. I like this one a lot more.”

“Oh yeah?” She kneels to look at the label and scoffs, but there’s a smile twitching at the corner of her lips. When she looks up at me, her sharp fox eyes are a little brighter. “Rose red? Really?”

“It seemed appropriate.”

“You’re a dork.”

“And you’re completely charmed, admit it.”

She laughs, shaking her head. She won’t admit it, but the way she’s relaxed over these past months speaks more loudly than words ever could. I barely even hesitate before carding a lock of her hair behind her ear… and she lets me. No questions asked. 

“Are we eating outside tonight?”

“If you want,” I say, glancing at our usual set up. “It’s a good night for it.”

“It is.” She hesitates now, awkwardly looking between me, and the house, and the firepit as though she doesn’t want to move further along this train of thought than she has to. Is she nervous? About tonight? About what she’s going to ask?

I want to tell her not to worry, but I can’t. The words won’t come. When I open my mouth, I find myself saying instead, “Why don’t I clean up and get a fire going?”

“Yeah. Yes. That would be good. I’ll do dinner,” says Rose, clamping her lips shut once she realizes that she’s babbling. She gives me a perfunctory nod and disappears back into the house.

I take my time caping the paint and moving it to the porch for tomorrow. The ladder gets folded up, and my paint brushes washed out. I hose myself off outside, then cart a few logs around front to start the fire. 

Rose appears with a tray of foil-wrapped shishkabob to cook as I’ve got the fire going. We pull up our new beach chairs and settle the boombox off to the side as the moon rises steadily behind us. 

“Maybe we should invest in an arbor,” I say as I crack open a beer.

“An arbor?”

“Y’know, those things that go over an area for a roof? Like, outdoors, but they don’t have walls.”

“That’s a pavilion.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah. Arbors are for flowers.”

“Huh. OK, well, another pavilion then. We can rig speakers up to it or something.”

Rose chuckles faintly. “You’re making awfully big plans, here, Mr. Fix-It.” 

I list my head to the side, the better to see her as I ask softly, “Should I not be?” 

Rose’s smile falters. She presses her lips together, and refuses to look at me when she says, “I thought we would wait till the end of the night.”

“Why?”

“So… we can…”

“Mm?”

A spot of colour lights her cheeks, vibrant even in the dark, and she shoots me an annoyed look. There’s a faint thump of movement at her side, and though I don’t see it, I now suspect that it’s the tail she usually keeps hidden. The one—or ones, I should say—that only seem to appear when she’s agitated. “What am I, James?”

So much for waiting, then.

I take a deep breath, and surprise myself with a sudden flurry of nerves. What if I’m wrong?

I don’t think I am. Not really. The evidence was in my face the whole time, like she’d barely bothered to hide her nature. And yet, if I’m wrong… what will happen if I get this wrong?

Taking one more look at Rose’s anticipatory expression—at the way she’s white-knuckling her beer like it’s the only thing keeping her from falling apart—I feel my nerves dry up again. She needs an answer. Even if it’s wrong, she needs to know that I’m trying. That I’m  _ willing _ to play by her terms when she needs me to. 

“You’re a kitsune.”

The tension eases from her body strand by strand, until she melts back into her seat and smiles at me with such exhaustion that I finally understand just how much strain these months have put on her. “I am.”

“So…” I roll my beer between my palms, finally allowing myself the space to ponder what Nobuyuki and Rose herself had been trying to tell me. This part I’m even less sure about, but given the legends I’d begun to read over it was making a terrible sort of sense. “I can stay?”

“Maybe,” she says. “ _ If _ you understand what staying means.”

“Grandpa stayed. Those terms didn’t apply with him, did they?”

“Osamu was married when I moved in. That changes things. We might have been able to change them again, after Keiko died, but… I loved him more like a father or brother. Not a… I wouldn’t have stayed, or I would have asked him to leave, if I thought he might trap me like that.”

“Huh.” I bite my lip, mulling that over a minute. “Answer me one other thing.”

“Sure.”

“ _ Do _ you have a choice in this? Or am I taking that away by staying? Would you only be going along with it to keep your home?”

She takes a sip of her beer, then sits up and turns to look at me fully. “I could kill you. I could make your life hell. If I really didn’t want you in my home, I could employ a hundred ways to be rid of you.”

“Even though I’m immune?”

“It would cost me,” she says. “It would probably cost my home, at least, and my life at worst. But if I… if I objected, you would know it.”

Of that, I have no doubt. 

“I want to stay,” I say softly, looking at her. “So how does this work? The legends didn’t really say.”

Rose puts her beer aside and stands up. She offers me her hand, and I think she’s wanting to dance until, when I take it, she sinks down into my lap instead. 

A little wondrously, I wrap my arms around her as she leans into my chest, her foxfire eyes boring into my own. Inch by inch, millimeter by millimeter, she closes the distance until our lips finally meet.

Her kiss is languid and slow, and more than enough to send a hot thrill through my body that pools within my hips. 

When she pulls away, she says softly against my lips, “I give myself to you, as you give yourself to me. But this will change things, James. It will change us. Change  _ you _ .”

“Change is kind of my thing,” I say with the faintest chuckle. “I can deal with a little more. If you can.”

She never has liked change much. I understand that. 

And still, she presses her lips to mine again. Then she stands up, keeping my hand in hers. We leave the fire, the food, the music behind as she leads me into the house and down into the basement. 

A mild tremble of fear passes through me as she hesitates there, looking between me and the blank wall behind the furnace. Then she presses her fingers into a brick and parts the wall like a curtain, pushing it aside to reveal a room that looks to be carved from the earth itself. Earthen shelves hold a collection of books, and there’s a lamp perched on a rock in the corner, but most of the space is overtaken by a nest of bedding strewn across the floor.

“All this time you were just… right there?”

“You couldn’t have gotten in without me,” she says, tugging me gently past the strange fold of reality and properly into her den. 

“But you could see me when I came in here, couldn’t you.”

“When you searched for me? Of course.”

I let out an exasperated little laugh, but let her pull me down into the blankets anyway. Rose chuckles softly as well, all the tension seeming to melt away from us as she pulls me down on top of her. Our lips meet once again, and after that there is nothing more between us except the rhythm of distant music and our own hearts. 

###  #

Kitsune. Fox spirit. Trickster. 

In the end, researching Rose's species wasn't difficult. "Japanese fox" brought it up instantly. Sifting through the information, and piecing it together with what I'd gleamed from my own observations, was something else. 

Some of the mythology was bunk, of course. Whether that's some sort of concentrated effort on the part of supernaturals to obscure real information about them, or just a natural consequence of humans rarely getting close enough to understand, I don't really know yet. In the past few weeks, Rose has expanded on my understanding and, as always, a lot of the things she says have greater implications.

That's the trouble with dating a Kitsune. They're loyal to a fault, of course, once you've earned their trust. But they, like many other supernaturals, are bound by laws of their own natures that are no more easily broken than gravity. 

Kitsune are tricksters, like I said. They're cryptic and strange, and when they issue a challenge--like find out what they are or GTFO--that challenge must be met. Rose suffered for every extension she gave me. The guilt of it eats at me, even now, though when I've tried to apologize she's only ever said "you didn't know," as though that weren't the point. 

They also, notoriously, make wonderful spouses. Though tales of Kitsune as succubi-like figures were harder to find, they were there. It's just that, unlike most succubi, these Kitsune tended to settle down with their 'victim.' Though Kitsune wives were less common in myth than husbands, Rose assures me that both are real. In fact, settling with a Kitsune as a lover is one of the three ways that Kitsune are made. And I'm not just talking the usual 'baby making' sort of way, either. It's a process I'm being intimately familiarized with, one day at a time.

Life goes on. We go on. Together.

Summer gives way to Fall, and Fall to Winter. The changes that Rose mentioned are coming on faster as Spring approaches, though I had take me a while to notice them.

See, some are born from Kitsune parents, as Rose was. Some are foxes who manage to cheat death long enough that they gain mystical powers for doing so. But select few are transformed by their affection for a Kitsune who loves them in return.

Guess which category I'll belong to?

I'd thought, at first, that my immunity to her powers might eclipse this, but I'm surprised—and grateful—to find that it doesn't. Rose suspects it comes from some non-human blood running through my family to begin with. Oni, maybe, or Yuki-onna. She isn't sure. What we do know is that, as the snows settled in, it became more and more difficult for me to sleep during the nights. The darkness in the house bothered me less and less, and the urge to scamper through the woods with some of our guests intermittent grew too strong to ignore.

Tonight, as I toss and turn, trying to sleep, Rose returns to my bedroom toward dawn, a worried expression on her face.

"I think it's time," she says softly.

"Time for... a late night romp?"

She huffs, but her smile turns wicked as she comes to me, crawling over my body and settling in to kiss me. A while later, when I'm lamenting the amount of clothes we're both still wearing, she draws away again. Rose ignores my protests, taking my hands instead and tugging me from the bed.

"Where are we going?"

"Downstairs. Bring your bedding, hm?"

"I thought you said you didn't cohabitate that way?"

"I said not until you were further along. We didn't want to push it too fast."

"Ah." I hesitate as I get to my feet, and look at the bed that had been my grandfather's. It had always seemed weird staying up here, but at the same time this bed represents the last part of me that's still somewhat human. After this there's no turning back. Not that I have any real intentions of that. "I'll be down in a few minutes, okay?"

Rose tips her head, silently conveying a sense of worry. "Alright," she says, and gently pads back down the stairs to the main hall.

I smile as she goes, then make my way into the adjoined bathroom to run the tap and splash water onto my face. It's weird that I'm nervous, I know. I've been to her den many times, now, and it isn't like we haven't been living together for months. Still, today is the day that her den becomes ours.

Ours. It's a word that sends a pleasant shiver down my spine, even now. I look up, meeting my brown, fox-like eyes and smile at the way it's all turned out.


End file.
